count to eight
by infantblue
Summary: In another timeline, Maka is killed on the moon and the world descends into madness. Five years later, a reclusive Soul stumbles across a girl who claims to be his dead best friend. [Resbang 2019. Cover art by ochako999 on Tumblr.]
1. don't you know

**summary:** in another timeline, maka is killed on the moon and the world descends into madness. five years later, a reclusive soul stumbles across a girl who claims to be his dead best friend.

**warnings:** angst, smut, canon-typical violence, sort of love triangle (though not really because it's just between maka and two souls)

* * *

**a/n:** ahhhhh welcome to my second resbang ever where i think i might just burst into tears because of how grateful i am!

this year i was paired with the amazing ochako999 and maevenneverland who are without a doubt the best partners a girl could ever have. they made so much amazing art for my fic (which you'll find linked on my bio) while also being two of the sweetest humans around, and i don't think i'll ever stop crying over them.

another big thanks to my chaotic discord server for making me ugly-laugh on the daily (i have drawn far too many dicks in the past few months because of you guys), my ga girls for kicking my ass into gear whenever i wanted to curl up into a ball and cry over my terrible writing (which was often), and most all of _you_, my lovely readers, for daring to read this monstrous fic. it's a total mess and needs a lot of tlc, but i hope you enjoy it anyway. :') xo

* * *

**chapter one: i'm no good for you**

_they both need her, but one of them needs her more. _

* * *

_**here. **_

It's surprisingly cold this year.

Soul blows into his hands, rubbing his palms together to retain warmth. Normally he can escape Kid's annual Christmas party and hide out in the gardens without any sort of penalty, but apparently Mother Nature decided she was bored this holiday season and wanted to take a turn punishing the antisocial hermit.

That, or she's calling him a coward.

It's probably that last one.

"Hiding already?" a familiar voice calls. "This must be a record."

Holding back a grimace, Soul maintains a blank expression as he turns his head to see his girlfriend approach him along the cobblestone path.

She's too pretty to be real in this setting, surrounded by glazed tree branches and the twinkling lights strung all over to make up for the blackened moon. Wearing a dress like that with her hair so long and loose, she might as well have "serenade me, you coward" plastered all over her forehead.

"Idiot, you're going to get frostbite," he scolds instead, already scowling as he shrugs off his suit jacket to drape over her shoulders. "What are you thinking, coming out here without a coat on?"

Maka smiles sweetly. "I was thinking my weapon always takes care of me."

_Stupid_. He thinks the word twice, both times so pathetically filled with affection. "Did Kid send you to hunt me down?" he asks. "I swear I was gonna go back inside. Continue wooing those foreign emissaries or whatever the hell he expects me to do. I just needed a break."

"Nah, it's fine. It's Christmas; he doesn't expect you to spend the whole time working." Her eyes twinkle. "Besides, I already handled it. The dignitaries love me."

He snorts. "Of course they do."

"Hey, one of us has to be doing our jobs right," she teases.

"Suck-up."

"I prefer the term _eager to please_."

Soul is incredulous. "How the hell did you manage to find the _one_ phrase that's dirtier than suck-up?"

Her smile is angelic. "It's a talent."

He responds with a growl as he nuzzles his face against her skin, his hands sliding under the jacket he covered her with to trace the artfully exposed curves underneath.

"Soul, stop!" she giggles. "We can't do it out here. It's _cold_."

"So keep me warm then," he grumbles. "And anyway, is that really the first thing you worry about when I'm trying to cop a feel? Not '_oh, someone might catch us'_ or '_what if your dick shrunk too much in this weather for me to feel it?'_"

This time when she laughs, he hides his own smile against her skin. She doesn't stop him, letting her head fall back with a sigh as he presses kisses along the base of her neck. Even when it's this cold, she's so _soft_. It's really unfair. He's seen her moisturizing routine. She hasn't done anything to deserve this level of silky perfection.

"Soul," she gasps when he nips particularly hard at her throat. Her hands grip at his shirt, desperate, and he decides that maybe getting a little dirty on a garden bench wouldn't be the worst thing after all.

But then the lights flicker.

That in itself wouldn't have been enough to tear his mouth away from her skin, except that it's accompanied by a deep tremble beneath the earth which causes Soul to stumble into his meister. She catches him, always so impressively steady on her size-five-hidden-by-giant-boots feet, and the speed at which she goes from _horny girlfriend_ to _calculating meister_ is seriously impressive.

And hot. _Really_ hot.

Soul's never been as adept at switching off his hunger as she is.

"A pre-kishin attack?" she asks with a frown as they rush back towards the party. It's been a long time since they've encountered a pre-k without actively hunting one, and even longer since one has existed within the walls of their city.

"Maybe a demon," Soul guesses. They're also rare these days, but they still exist. Though the Witch Treaty has significantly put a damper on their confidence.

As they approach the mansion, they can already hear a commotion brewing. Plenty of shouts, glass shattering. A horrifying, almost unearthly slithering sound as fluid shadows spill out of the windows like overflowing bath water. They pick up their pace.

When they finally burst into the room, they're horrified by the sight in front of them.

"Kid!" Maka cries.

The chandelier is history, now scattered around the dancefloor in a million tiny little pieces. The decorations are torn; the tables cracked and thrown about. The civilian guests have all been ushered to the sides of the room as several witches hold up a barrier to keep them safe, but the real terror is the enormous entity in the middle of the room that seems to have no problem fending off the advances of half a dozen meisters.

It's like nothing Soul's ever seen before, even during the worst of the war. A giant, oozing ball of shadowy flesh with these sharp, jerking limbs that regenerate and extend from its body whenever someone tries to attack it.

Accompanying it is this _smell_, putrid and awful—but even worse are the low, chittering moans coming from its repulsive form, over and over and over again, filling the room like a sickening hum.

"_Maakaa. Maaaaaaaakaaaa." _

Soul feels his blood run cold.

Kid, who is currently trying to hold back several of its limbs from further attacking the civilian barrier, jerks his head up at her call for him, his face flashing with horror. It's obvious how long the creature must've been moaning her name by the intensity of the reaper's panic.

"Maka, get back!" he screams.

In the same moment, she gasps as Soul tackles her to the side just in time to avoid getting pierced by a flurry of sword-like limbs. He then rolls and grabs her hand, jerking her to her feet as he starts off in a sprint, squeezing to get her attention. "Maka!"

"R-right!"

He shifts into weapon form just in time for her to swing him in defense. She manages to block two of them, slicing off three more, before being forced to jump back as another wave rushes at her. The monster seems to have forgotten about the others completely now that it has her in its sight, its several dozen eyes turning to train directly on her.

"I don't understand," she says as she blocks more of its attacks. "Why does it keep coming for me?"

"_Doesn't matter,"_ growls Soul. "_I'll die before I let it take you. The only priority now is to kill it." _

"But how?"

"_To your left!" _

She twists to the side, barely dodging the next stream of violent hands as they scrape off Soul's blade. But instead of relief, he can feel her horror, because those same regenerative limbs that had just tried to rip into her heart somehow jerk to the side with enough force to shatter one of the barriers protecting the guests.

He hears Angela among the screams.

"_Maka, no!" _he cries out.

Too late. She flips over one of the creature's arms to run against it, slicing at the others with a ferocity that would impress him in any other circumstance. At the end of her sprint, Maka dives, pushing Angela out of the way from an attack and twisting in a way that cushions the young girl's fall.

Through their bond, Soul can feel the pain shoot up Maka's spine and he cries out for her, demanding to know if she's hurt.

She forces a smile as she sits up. "I'm fine," she lies terribly. She glances down at the young witch and looks relieved that she's unharmed.

Before she can say anything else, she's yanked away so quickly that Soul is literally whipped from her grip and clatters to the floor. He shifts back to human form in an instant, scrambling for her with a cry, but it's too late.

The monster has Maka dangling by her ankle over its main form, the rest of its extensions retreating as well. Black Star and Kid both try to charge at it only to be swatted away like flies and held back with the pressure of mutated shadow limbs.

Then it does the worst thing possible.

It drops her.

"NO!" Soul screams.

It's like a detonator is pressed. The moment Maka's body is absorbed into its inky flesh, the creature begins to twitch and jerk violently, pulsing and moving so rapidly that even the meisters have no choice but to back up.

With a horrifying screech, it's sucked into the earth through an invisible exit, like some sort of oversized blob of goo being sucked through a vacuum or forced down a drain. The whole fleshy monstrosity continues to be pulled through that tiny unseen gateway until it has completely disappeared from the ballroom. Gone.

And Maka along with it.

* * *

_**there. **_

She's deposited on the ground with a squelching _plop_ that will likely give her nightmares for weeks. She comes up coughing, curled over on her hands and knees, sticky black residue dripping from her skin after that brief stint inside that creature's body.

It was so dark. So thick. So suffocating.

For a moment, she actually thought she was going to die.

"What the hell is this?"

Startled, Maka looks up from the ground and nearly jerks back from the change. Instead of the Gallows ballroom, which had been decorated in extravagant Christmas decorations before it was ravished by that monster, she's in the Death Room.

Except it's not the Death Room she knows.

Gone are the tall, stone pillars and symmetrical, monochrome trinkets. Gone are the clear, blue skies and perfectly cartoonish clouds.

The space in which she kneels now looks _ravaged_. Like something straight from a noir film about a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Chipped cement, shattered glass, and various, miscellaneous splatters all over the once-white floors. Overhead, the false sky is grey—and not just the dull shade during a light rain, but the kind of grey that trembles with an ominous foreboding before the monsters attack.

And the air… It's thick with madness.

But if she thought the Death Room looked like it had been through war, that has nothing on the three people who stand in front of her now.

The normally ageless, untouchable Kid looks decades older than she remembers. Not physically, of course, but through the rigid tension of his shoulders and the dark shadows that glow behind dull golden eyes.

Behind him stands a stone-faced Harvar in chipped visors and Liz, who stares down at Maka with the kind of unbridled hatred that could make anyone flinch. Both of them are dressed in dirt-smeared clothes, their limbs patterned with bandages and scars.

Even more terrifying is the fact that Kid looks just as haggard. Overcome OCD or not, the reaper never would've walked around looking anything less than perfect.

Stunned and more than a little frightened, Maka whispers, "K-Kid? What happened to you? What happened to _all_ of you? How much time did I miss?"

Clearly this couldn't have been just her being transported from the Gallows to the academy. There's no way the world could've crumbled that fast.

Did she black out? Forget what happened? Get sucked into the future somehow?

What the hell is going on?

At her words, Kid's golden eyes tighten but he merely shifts his gaze behind her. "Explain."

"You asked for a way to fix things," a strange, trilling voice replies. "This is it."

Maka nearly falls on her ass from whipping around so fast. She expects to see the monster that had stolen her from the ballroom in the first place, so she's surprised to find a small floating shadow instead. It looks more like a black cartoon ghost. A sheet tied over a ball with glowing yellow circles that must be eyes.

_A wraith_, she realizes. It all makes sense now. She's read about these creatures in the restricted library, though she's never seen one up close before. She thought they were extinct. Since when did Kid allow them to get this close, let alone exist inside their city?

"I asked you for a solution to this madness," Kid says, "not for the imitation of an old friend."

The wraith only hums. "She is not an imitation—though I suspect you already know that from her soul. She is as real as you and I. Perhaps even more so as the two of us breathe death more than life."

"I don't have time for your games. Do not test me. I am not in a patient mood."

"You are angry," notes the wraith.

Kid's jaw ticks. "I'm _displeased_. We had a deal."

"And I have honored it. There are many answers to the request you posed. This is the way the universe chose to respond."

"This isn't what I asked for."

"But it is. You just don't know it yet."

"Useless." Lips curling, Kid jerks his hand and the shadowy creature splits in half before dissolving into mist.

"Remember," the echoing voice murmurs. "Her time is borrowed. Should she run out before your problem is solved, you will both pay the price."

With that, it vanishes completely, leaving nothing but a resounding silence in its wake.

"Well, that was a waste of fucking time," mutters Liz. "What now? Do we get rid of her? Cut off her head?"

"_What?" _Instinctively, Maka's hand flies to her throat, protective. She looks to the reaper, who is the only one not staring at her with blatant distaste. "Kid, what's going on?"

Liz bares her teeth with a snarl. "Don't fucking speak to him, you shapeshifting bitch. You're here because we were desperate enough to try and trust a wraith, not because we're actually going to listen to whatever pathetic ploy you have cooked up."

"Shapeshifting?" Maka echoes. "I don't—I don't understand. Liz, it's _me_. I wouldn't even know how to go about doing something like that. How would that be possible?"

"Oh, please. You think this is the first time someone's tried masquerading as Maka Albarn to get close to us?" She lets out a cruel laugh. "Fucking demons. Always think they're something clever and special when really they're all the same stupid breed."

"But I—I don't—" Struggling for words, Maka looks helplessly from Liz's hate-filled eyes to Harvar's impenetrable stare to the darkness in Kid's, and finds herself on the edge of tears. "What _happened?" _Then, even more horrified: "Where's Soul?"

It happens so fast.

One second Maka is kneeling on the ground, confused and frightened and feeling monstrously out of place, and the next, she's clawing at Liz's hand which is wrapped around her neck.

"Don't you fucking _dare_ say his name," the demon pistol snarls. "Do you have a death wish? _Huh?_ You're really looking to mess with him again after everything he's been through? Haven't you already destroyed him enough?!"

"I—I—"

"Liz, let her go," Kid orders, voice practically Siberian, colder than ice.

"Why?" she cries out. "Why should I? Why are we even entertaining her lies in the first place? We should just slit her throat right here! Hang her body up to dry in the square like the fucking traitor she is, show them we're not to be messed with, send a _message—_"

"I said let her _go_."

The command is _thunderous_, exploding through the Death Room with a terrifying force that nearly knocks everyone off their feet. The fake sky ceiling spits chipped plaster and dust, and the ground beneath them tremors with the force of a hundred earthquakes.

Somewhere in the distance, something glass shatters. More stone pillars crack and fall.

Liz flinches at the sheer potency of his words, but releases Maka with a petty shove of her shoulder and a look of pure betrayal.

Maka often forgets the extent of Kid's full power. Since the war, he's never had a reason to use it, so it's easy to ignore the fact that he could easily decimate a city in a rage.

The look on his face now reminds him how grateful she is that he's never been as broken as his brother.

Holding her gaze with terrifying stillness she's unable to break free from, Kid says, "Harvar, go find Soul. Now."

The demon spear shoots him a sharp look. "You can't be serious. This has to be a trick, and you _know_ how difficult it is to get ahold of him these days—"

"Did I ask for your opinion?" Kid interrupts, his voice so cold and flat it's almost cruel. "Just because you're my current Death Scythe does not mean you have any kind of say in how I operate. This is the second time you've chosen to doubt me today. There will not be a third. Do you understand?"

Harvar clenches his jaw before bowing stiffly. "As you wish, Lord Death." Then, in a flash, he's gone.

"Soul's okay?" Despite the bruises already forming on her throat and having absolutely no idea what has happened since she was sucked out of the Gallows and deposited in this broken replica of their school's magical briefing room, Maka is filled with an almost debilitating sense of relief. Whatever's happened, she can deal with it, so long as her partner is alright.

Liz lets out a long, dark laugh. "You must think you're so funny."

"Huh?"

"Oh, cut the shit already. We know what the rumors say about him. You can try to play dumb all you want, but pretending not to know what happened to Eater is fucking ludicrous."

Maka inhales sharply. Her own pain forgotten, she drops her hands to her sides and scrambles to her feet with desperation. "What are you talking about? Did something happen to Soul? I was just with him. Is he okay?"

The demon pistol's eyes flash with fury, but before she can lash out in the same cruel way that Maka doesn't understand, Kid holds up a hand, silencing her. "Is it alright if I ask you a few questions?"

The chillingly calm way in which he speaks makes Maka's spine tremble, but she straightens her back, unwilling to back down. "Only if you tell me what's wrong with Soul."

"Of course. I just need you clarify some things for me first." When she agrees, he steps in front of her, gold eyes piercing. "Your name is Maka?"

"Who else would I be?"

"What day do you think it is?"

"December twenty-fifth."

"And your age?"

"Nineteen. Just one year younger than you." She can't help but throw out last part, tentatively inquiring, and she feels a deep rush of relief when he nods his confirmation. So she hadn't lost years like she thought. That's one fear she can cross of her list.

"Where were you born?"

"Here in Death City."

"The last time you saw your mother?"

"Two months ago. At Liz and Tsubaki's engagement party."

Her answer makes the demon pistol suck in a sharp breath, but Maka doesn't get a chance to study her expression because Kid's intense stare doesn't let go of hers. "Are you still a meister?"

"Always."

"Your profession?"

"Officially the payroll department lists me as an ambassador, though I spend way more time acting as your right-hand man than anything else."

"Ambassador for what?"

"The treaty you founded after the Battle on the Moon."

His face flickers, so fast she almost misses it. "Which we won," he says slowly.

She frowns. "Of course." Somewhat uneasy, her gaze breaks free of Kid's, just briefly, and her eyes widen when she looks up to see Liz staring down at her for the first time without anger but with _shock_.

"One last question," says Kid, drawing her attention back to him. "How did you get here?"

At that, Maka hesitates. "I don't… I don't know. One second we were at your annual Christmas party, and then suddenly there was this _creature_—this horrible, disgusting creature—and it wouldn't stop attacking everyone until it had its hands on me. I slipped up and let my guard down and got separated from Soul, and the next thing I knew, I was being sucked into its body and dropped here."

"Kid, _no_," Liz says suddenly, adamantly, filled with rage-veiled horror. "You can't be serious!"

The reaper doesn't blink. "I don't believe I said anything."

"You didn't have to!" she cries out. "I _know_ you. Whatever you're thinking, whatever you're about to do, whatever you want to believe, I don't care. You _can't_. She's not the real Maka! This is a trick, or a game, or an illusion, I don't fucking know—but it's fake. A manipulation. You can't fall for it and bring Soul in just to ruin his life all over again. You and I both know he won't survive another loss."

"Wait a second," Maka insists. "That's not fair. You've been cold to me ever since I arrived. Why are you so intent on believing I'm not real?"

"You're asking me _why?_" she hisses with disbelief. "Are you fucking _kidding_ me? Of course you're not real! Everyone knows that! Because the real Maka—"

"Is dead."

Both girls startle at the new voice, but Kid doesn't even flinch. Standing several feet away from them is Soul, no longer wearing a fitted suit like she'd left him but the same kind of ragged clothes as the others. His crimson eyes are blank, harder than she's ever seen them—and his face. Oh god, his _face_.

The left side is covered in a large, misshapen scar that extends from his eye over his forehead and down to the corner of his mouth in a malformed star. Like someone had taken boiling water and held him down while they poured it on his face. It's clearly old, having been healed for a long time, but she also spots burns all down his neck, disappearing beneath the collar of his shirt, as well as dirty bandages covering the majority of his arms.

She doesn't realize she's crying until everything starts to blur and she's forced to wipe the tears away.

"So much for it being difficult to locate him," Kid says to Harvar.

"It was a coincidence. I had no idea Soul would be patrolling the city at this exact moment—" He breaks off, shoulders going slack. "But you did. Didn't you." When Kid doesn't give any indication that he even heard Harvar's prompt—which is an answer all on its own—the demon lightning spear sighs. "Of course you did. You know, you could've just said so."

The reaper ignores the comment to address Soul instead. Soul, who is staring at her like he's never seen her before in his entire life. Soul, who is covered in so many marks it physically hurts her. Soul, whose eyes look nothing like the boy she loves, who has somehow aged decades even though Kid confirmed no time has passed at all, and who stands with the posture of a man who bears the weight of the world on his shoulders and breaks more and more every day.

Soul, whose essence is so dark and tainted that it makes her heart feel like it's being ripped from her chest.

"Well," Kid says calmly. "Aren't you going to say hello to your old meister?"

* * *

_**here. **_

"How's he doing?"

"Not good," Liz says grimly, glancing over her shoulder to where Soul is bent over on their couch, his face buried in his hands. It's been several hours since that disgusting shadow monster disappeared with Maka, and no matter how much Xanax she slips into his water, he refuses to calm down.

Tsubaki's heart aches. "His meister vanished into thin air right in front of him. It's unsurprising that he's upset."

As weapons themselves, it's a feeling she and Liz can understand well. There is nothing more devastating that feeling like you failed your partner. With Soul and Maka, that has always been more intense.

Tsubaki loves Black Star and worries for him and hates when he gets hurt, but the level of guilt she feels pales in comparison to the crippling self-hatred that Soul and Maka seem to put on themselves whenever the other gets so much as a scratch.

For a long time, Tsubaki attributed that to their romantic feelings for each other, even before they knew what they felt. Then, later, she wondered if the indescribable bond between their souls had anything to do with it.

Now Tsubaki understands it's just the way they are. Everyone knows Soul and Maka would die for each other, in a heartbeat, without a second thought. It's part of what makes their partnership one of the strongest in DWMA history—but it's also what makes them so volatile and broken when they're apart.

"You need to be certain," Kadal is saying on the other side of the room. The Grand Witch's assistant, a tall lizard-themed woman who acts as an ambassador for the treaty on the witches' side just like Maka and Soul do for the academy, answered Kid's call as soon as she could and agreed to listen to their story, but from the expression on her normally expressionless face, it's clear she isn't pleased. "If what you're saying is true, then that means this problem extends far beyond what is possible in your realm."

"I know what I saw," answers Kid. "Are you saying you can't help us?"

"You must understand. There are practices of magic that even the darkest of witches are forbidden to use. With the implementation of a treaty, that law has only become more strict. But even if they weren't prohibited, there are less than a handful of witches who could even _attempt_ to use this kind of magic—a magic our kind shouldn't even possess in the first place. Because it came from something else."

Kid does not blink. "Wraiths."

"Yes. Death spirits possess just as much magic as my kind. Or even, to an extent, as much magic as you." Kadal's gaze remains trained on the reaper, flat and all-knowing. Liz and Patty seem to bristle at her scrutiny, inching closer to their meister, but Kid remains still. Unaffected. "Remember, under original Witch Order laws, the mere act of being a Death God itself is a crime punishable by a million deaths. The same goes for being a death spirit. They are creatures that simply should not exist."

"And they _don't_ exist," says Kid. "Not anymore. My father made sure of it."

"Your father hunted those of which he could, but you and I both know he was not infallible."

At that, Kid's jaw tightens, but Liz is confused. "Wait a second, what's so wrong with death spirits if Death Gods are okay? What makes them different?"

"Death Gods may be unnatural beings," says Kid, "but we exist on a fixed plane. Each one rules their own. We have a corporeal form and we are limited to it. It's what makes us easier, from an outside perspective, to control."

Kadal nods, approving of Kid's explanation. "Death spirits, on the other hand, are not limited to one physical form. Because of that, they have the power to cross _planes_. Universes. Boundaries that normal creatures like you and I can't even think about traveling."

"Like… time travel?" Liz asks, still lost.

"More like time_line_ travel," Kid says and he expands on that no further. His gaze shifts back to the witch. "You think that this is the work of a wraith?"

"The kind of monster you're describing is a blood phantom. A spiritual hound. Basically a limitless hunting dog. And the only creatures that can create blood phantoms are wraiths."

"But why? Why send one here?"

"You said it was after Maka Albarn?"

Tensing, Tsubaki glances back at Soul in time to see him stiffen. He doesn't lift his head, doesn't move towards them, but from the bone-breaking tension in his jaw, she can tell he's listening.

The reaper must be thinking the same thing because his gold eyes flicker to Soul briefly before responding. "Yes."

"The girl herself is quite ordinary, but her soul is not. And it's not the shape that we concern ourselves. Grigori souls are rare, but not incomparable." Kadal folds an arm over her stomach, seeming to ponder how to word this. "She has what we call a _pivotal_ soul. A soul that shapes destiny. When several key factors that alter the course of magic are focused around one person, that universe sort of… _imprints_ on her, in a way. Like threads twisting in a knot to keep them in place before continuing on until the next. She may not be the thing that actually accomplishes change, but she is the factor that inspires it. A catalyst, if you will."

"What does that have to do with the blood phantom's attack on her?"

"Pivotal souls are rare," Kadal reminds him. "They become _important_, coveted, put on a pedestal—whether they're worth it or not. Almost like… sentimental value. For example, old collectible baseball cards are merely pieces of printed paper—could be replicated a million different ways, be remade a million different times—and yet humans will pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for them when in reality they're worth less than nothing."

"You're saying Maka is like a rare baseball card," Kid says slowly.

Her eyes flicker. "A blood phantom was sent to retrieve her. That means someone contracted a wraith, in a fit of desperation—because no one would make a deal with a death spirit otherwise—and begged to fix something they thought was broken. But the only reason a blood phantom would target a pivotal soul is if that soul is lost."

Kid stiffens, realization settling on his normally stoic face. On the other side of the room, Soul jumps to his feet and stalks toward the Witch Assistant in terrified confusion. "Wait, what does that mean? _Lost?_ Why was she lost? What happened? Who took her?"

Had Tsubaki not known better, she might've thought Kadal was looking down at him with pity. "It's my understanding that someone from another timeline sought to steal her to fix what was ruined in her absence. And if that's the case, then I doubt there is any way you can get her back."

* * *

_**there. **_

He won't even look at her. They've been driving for almost half an hour and he hasn't so much as glanced her way.

To be fair, Maka has a hard time looking at him, too. From her position in the passenger's seat, she has a perfect view of the scarred side of his face, and she can't even peak at him without feeling like he _knows_ she's looking, and that makes her uneasy because she doesn't want him thinking she's staring just because he's scarred.

Because she's _not_. She just wants to see him. She's devastated that he got hurt and she doesn't even know how, and she hates that there are five years missing between them to the point where they feel like strangers, but she just wants to _see_ him. To look him in the eyes and really show, without saying anything, how sorry she is for leaving him when she had no idea she left at all.

For all the years they've been partners, Maka has prided herself in how comfortable they are around each other—how easy it is to be with him, even when it isn't—so the tense, uncomfortable way she's feeling right now is foreign. Practically alien.

But then, she supposes that makes sense, considering this world isn't her own.

"S-so you live outside Death City now?" she says awkwardly. "That's cool."

Trying to make small talk is a little hard with all the demons they seem to drive by, gnawing at dead animals and rummaging through the broken cars left on the ragged streets. She itches to jump out of Soul's beaten down Range Rover and slay those monsters, but this is one of the things Kid said was normal about this ruined world of theirs before they parted ways.

Apparently meisters and weapons don't bother with the passive demons anymore. There are too many of them. It's only a waste of energy.

Still, the thought of letting them be sits badly in her stomach.

It's been a few hours since she was dropped in this twisted reality. In that time, Kid managed to discern that the wraith must've stolen her from some alternate timeline where they actually prevailed over the kishin, and it deposited her here, in a timeline where they didn't.

"_I… was killed?" Maka whispers "When? How?" _

"_Five years ago," Kid answers. "During the Battle on the Moon." _

_It doesn't escape her notice that he doesn't tell her how and she respects him enough not to press. "And then madness spread," she says slowly. "But—what about Crona? They sacrificed everything to keep that from happening. Didn't they still seal Asura to the moon?" _

"_Why the hell would they do that?" snorts Liz. "Crona was more fucked-up than the rest of us combined. Who do you think lost it first? We never stood a chance." _

"_No," Maka tries to insist. "Crona is _good_. They saved us all!" _

"_Not here, they didn't." _

_Her heart beats faster, the world starting to spin. "I don't understand. It's been_ _five years. There's no way the world could've survived five years of madness! That's not just war—that's a _loss_. And you couldn't—you couldn't have—" _

"_What? Fucked up so badly that the world became infested with demons and over half the population was slaughtered before we could even try to do anything about it?" Liz's smile is bitter. "Sorry to pop your precious unicorn bubble, sweetie, but that's exactly what happened." _

"_No," Maka whispers, shaking her head slowly back and forth, sinking down to her hands. "_No_. No, no, no, no, _no_. It can't be. There's no way—" _

_Kid must see how distressed she is and take pity on her because his next words are quiet, almost soft. "This has been a lot of information to absorb at once. It's getting late. How about we all split for the night to get some rest and then meet up in the morning to figure out what to do with Maka's return?" _

"_Are you fucking serious?" Liz asks incredulously. "We're the ones who lived through hell for the past five years while she's been in Candyland and you're coddling _her_?" _

"_We're used to it. She isn't. Don't be heartless, Elizabeth." _

"_Me, heartless?" She laughs cruelly. "Oh, that's rich coming from the man who—" _

_Golden eyes flash, and in an instant, Liz is on her knees. Maka didn't see him move to strike her—and she knows he'd never resort to hitting a girl, let alone his own weapon—_never—_so it must've been some instinctive power reflex, a defense mechanism of lashing out that invokes headache-like symptoms. One he clearly regrets the moment it happens from the flash of self-hatred in his eyes before his expression shutters closed. _

_Without another word, he turns to Soul, who has been deathly silent throughout this entire ordeal. "Are you willing to put Maka up for the night or should I?" _

Now, driving along broken roads in a nearly devastated city, Soul grunts in response to her attempt at conversation, and Maka has to hide a grimace.

"Do you like it there?" she tries again. "Living outside the border, I mean. You never really struck me as a camping type. I just can't believe how much the city has changed from the one I know. I mean, there are so many _trees_. We're in a desert, so the fact that Kid simply magicked a forest into existence surrounding all of DC is incredible. I never could've imagined he could do something like that. And the way you've all managed for this long—"

"I _moved_," he interrupts flatly, knuckles bone-white over the wheel, "because this city is as protected as it's going to get and someone needed to watch the border. It's not a vacation. It's an obligation. We're at war. Life is not something we have the luxury of enjoying."

She flinches. "I—I know that—"

"Do you? Because it seems like you tagged along thinking we were going to have a fun little trip together and you're disappointed I'm being a shitty tour guide."

"N-no! I—"

"I mean, I can try, if you want," he continues. "See that building over there? That used to be the civilian elementary school before we were slammed with a storm of demons that drove most of the families out of the city and devoured every single kid that stayed. And see where that vulture is chewing on some rotted mound of flesh behind that flipped truck? Those limbs used to belong to our neighbors, the Nelsons. Remember them? They used to borrow flour from us just so they could bake us cookies as thanks for protecting the world. Now they're basically dessert to carnivorous creatures that feel like a snack."

"Stop." Maka has to dig her nails into palms to keep from crying. "_Stop _it. You're being cruel."

"I'm being honest," he says plainly. "Now shut the fuck up and hold onto the bars."

"Wha—" She cuts off with a scream as Soul suddenly jerks the wheel to the side, veering them off the road.

They continue barrelling over uneven, dead grass until they break into the far tree line, which only makes the ride even more chaotic. Maka's wrists almost snap from all the jerking around as the Rover rushes through the trees over a path that doesn't exist, but Soul seems used to it, riding the bumps with ease.

He keeps gunning it through the magical forest, barely missing large tree trunks, various animal corpses, and large rocks in their path, until he suddenly jerks the wheel again, the car screeching to a harsh halt.

By this point, Maka is breathless, terrified, and ready to scream Soul's head off for driving so recklessly when the man she remembers wouldn't go so much as five miles over the speed limit if she was with him—but then she sees where they've stopped.

In front of them is a small wooden cabin with ivy crawling up the sides and a surprising lack of mold along the ground. It isn't in perfect condition—nothing in this city is—but something about it feels apart from the rest of the rundown remains of the beautiful town she once knew.

Soul cuts the engine, his expression unreadable. "Welcome home."

**ii. **

Home is _old_.

Clearly older than he could've possibly lived here, considering thorough questioning by Kid determined that their timelines only diverged five years ago, and at that point, she and Soul still lived in town. It's not like it could've existed long either because the reaper only created this enormous forest around the same time.

She doesn't know the story behind Soul moving away. No one offered. She doesn't know what happened to him after her death, why he and the others barely spoke three words to each other, why his face is covered in scars. She doesn't know what his life is like now or who decorated this tiny, quaint place of his.

All she knows is that it's obvious he's cared for it, spent a long time in it, and that alone is enough to make her heart feel torn in shreds.

"It's nice," she whispers.

He doesn't answer. He kicks off his boots before stalking inside with his flashlight, so she follows suit, taking slow, tentative steps into his home.

She feels like an intruder. Hovering uncertainly around the edges. Watching as he begins to strike a flame in the fireplace.

It's strange seeing him move with such purpose. The Soul she knows drags his feet everywhere, destroying the soles of his shoes every time he walks. He's lazy and lethargic, moving at a pace that even snails would scoff at, but he's calming. So calming. His presence is warm. He always has to remind her, often with affection, that they don't have to rush through everything. They have forever to be happy, after all. They can take their time.

This Soul is the opposite. He's quick on his feet, no actions wasted. He has a routine and he's very thorough with it and he seems displeased that she's so still.

"What," he says flatly.

Realizing she's been staring, Maka blushes and drop her gaze. "Sorry, I just… I'd like to help, but I kind of feel too filthy to touch anything right now. Do you have a shower I can use?"

His jaw twitches. He doesn't turn his head, but he must remember how dirty she is, smeared with the remnants of the blood phantom's hold.

After watching him stoke the fire a little longer, he stands. Grabs a few bottles from one of the display cabinets. Stalks past her through the door, all without glancing her way.

"Are you coming or what?"

She follows.

The "shower" turns out to be a bath. Or, more specifically, a _river_. It's a long, winding strip of slow-moving water that seems to stretch much farther than she can see, somehow clear and sparkling despite the madness that otherwise pollutes the earth. In fact, she now realizes that the air is much less tainted out here in general. That must be the point of this magicked forest.

For a brief moment, she can only be in awe of how Kid managed to not only create a protective forest around the Death City border to cleanse as much of the insanity as he could, but also a sustainable ecosystem with a variety of plants, trees, and an honest-to-goodness river cutting through it all.

Then she realizes what Soul is implying by taking her out here.

"You—you're kidding, right?" Her eyes are blown wide. "It's freezing outside! I'll get sick."

"That's a myth. You won't get sick from the cold alone. If your constitution's strong enough, you should be fine." When she doesn't answer, only continues to gape at him, he clenches his jaw. "Fine. Don't clean up. Stay filthy for all I care. Just do it fast."

With that, he stalks off, leaving her staring after him by a river that, five years ago, did not exist.

Shivering, she pulls her Soul's suit jacket tighter around her to shield her from the air. She wishes she'd known he didn't have a bath because then maybe she would've cleaned up before she left the academy.

But there's no way she can get any rest if she's covered in this grime. And considering the state of this world, she has a feeling she'll want to be well-rested.

She strips down to her birthday suit. Keeps blushing and glancing around, despite the fact that no one's here.

It takes a long moment for her to actually work up the nerve to step into the lake, but the others have lived through a literal apocalypse. The least she can do is not be a fucking chicken afraid of a little cold.

The water is like a shock to her system. She gasps loudly, every nerve in her body screaming at her to get out, but she endures it, pushes through it, submerges her whole body beneath the water before coming up for air, trembling violently.

Once she's minimized her internal swearing to only like three words per second, a little more used to the ridiculous temperature, she reaches out to grab one of the bottles Soul left for her so she can lather shampoo through her hair. It feels heavenly, aside from the fact that she can no longer feel her toes.

For a world supposedly filled by madness, the water is surprisingly pure. The trees, too—they're so big, and strong, and healthy. So different from the ruins of their city.

Maka wonders if it's because this forest was created directly from Kid's magic and therefore offers it a certain level of protection he can't cast over normal buildings. Just from placing her hand on a nearby rock, she can feel the energy thrumming in this place. It pulses through her, warm, soothing, even if the air says something different.

It's incredible, what the reaper has done to protect their city. She knows he must feel responsible, guilty, disillusioned for the way the world fell after the moon—but the fact that they've all survived this long is beyond what anyone could've expected.

Or at least, _most_ of them survived. She didn't see Patty or Tsubaki or the others at the DWMA, and with the way everyone was acting, she was too scared to ask.

Maka is just washing out the conditioner from her hair with shaking hands when she hears a sound. Like a titter. Not quite a bird, but nothing like an animal either.

Feeling a chill creep up her spine, she turns, about to call out for Soul, when suddenly she's yanked straight underwater.

She screams—which in hindsight was probably not her smartest decision. Her lungs instantly fill with fluid, and then she's coughing even more, which definitely doesn't help. Her whole body jerks, arms flailing, trying to get free of whatever the hell is pulling her along stream.

Her head slams into something hard—probably a rock—and she can feel the world get instantly blurrier. She twists, hands grappling to grab at anything they pass, but her attacker is moving her too fast, her palms scraping against rough dirt and rubble.

And then, just as suddenly, there's a flash of light, a high-pitched demonic scream, and a strong arm yanking her out of the water.

She's pulled into Soul's chest as he collapses back on his ass, his arm already transformed back from its blade. She's coughing violently, shaking so much that it feels like she's going to get whiplash, but he does not give her the luxury of calming down.

His hands grip her bare shoulders, his ruby eyes _wild_, explosive, more firecracker than flame. "What the hell were you thinking, letting your guard down like that?" he yells. "Do you have a death wish? Are you trying to get yourself killed?!"

"I—I—it's not like I expected to get attacked during my bath!" she splutters when she can finally catch her breath. "I didn't know there were demons out here. You never said anything."

"We live in what's pretty much an apocalyptic wasteland! Of course there are going to be fucking demons. There are demons _everywhere_. Are you really so stupid to think they wouldn't attack you just because you're not from here? If anything, that makes you _more_ of a target."

Her cheeks burn with embarrassment, then burn even more when she realizes she's still completely naked and currently straddling him on the dirt.

Soul must realize the same thing because his eyes go wide as saucers. In an instant, they're scrambling to their feet, both varying shades of crimson. Maka feels like her whole body is made of lava despite the fact that she's so frozen her lungs can barely function, but the moment she tries to stand, the world spins, blurring into a smear.

He steadies her with a curse. Seems to war with himself for a moment before scooping her up in his arms and heading back to his cabin.

He drops her on his bed, far gentler than she would've expected considering how tumultuous his soul is right now. He doesn't look at her. His jaw is sharp. Clenched. He stalks away with tight muscles and stiff joints, and she can't help but watch him—this man who saved her and clearly hates that he did—with a heart heavy with regret.

Maka can't stop trembling. Her fingers reach as if to pull the covers around her, but before she can, he returns with a towel he drapes over her shoulders and a pile of clothes he drops on the mattress at her side.

She blinks up, confused.

"There's no point in bathing if you're just going to put on those filthy clothes again," he says to the wall, jaw tight. "You can wear those for now. We'll grab you clothes from town tomorrow."

"Th-thank you," she whispers.

The sweatpants he gave her are far too big—she has to roll up the ends several times and pull the drawstring uncomfortably tight to keep them from sliding down her hips—but the sweater… It's so soft. She drowns in it, the way she always does in his clothes, and the inside is surprisingly comfy.

It smells like him. His overall scent is different than the one she knows, but at the same time, it's familiar. Right.

She's not sure what it is. She just knows she feels warm.

She goes to thank him again—once for the clothes and again for saving her—when she notices the tension in the back of his neck. He's standing in front of the fireplace, facing away from her, backlit by flames, and suddenly she knows.

"You're mad at me."

"Mad?" He lets out a laugh, low and dark. "Mad? Are you kidding me? I'm fucking _furious_."

She flinches back, stung. That's the first time he let any true venom slip out. Even when he was cruel to her in the car, taunting her with that gruesome mockery of a tour, his voice had been blunt, impassive. Never ruthless. Not even when he was yelling at her by the river did he seem so hostile.

He seems to regret the words the moment they leave his mouth because he clenches his jaw and quickly turns away. "Fuck this," he mutters. "I'm going for a walk."

As Maka watches him struggle to get his boots on, his movements too jerky and stiff to be seamless, she finds herself getting angry, too. "You know what? _No_. Fuck _that_. We're talking. Right now."

She watches the muscles in his back tense. "Are you ordering me to speak?"

"You bet your ass I am."

"I don't have anything to say to you."

"Oh, I'm sure," she says sarcastically. "Your dead girlfriend comes back, five years later, five years older, with a whole new history you have no idea about, and you don't have any questions? Bullshit. They don't even have to be about us, for Death's sake! At least be interested in why I was pulled here in the first place. Ask me about our friends, your family. Ask me anything at all. Anything will be better than the silence you've been giving me for the past few hours. You're like a walking corpse, and it's terrifying."

_I can't stand to see you like this_, she almost begs. _Please. Say something. Fight with me. Anything. This is killing me. _

_Please. _

Soul is very still. "What did you just say?"

"If you're mad that I'm finally talking back, then you better get used to it. I've been trying so hard not to step on your toes because I get that this is hard for you, but that doesn't give you the right to—"

"No, shut the fuck up for a second, that's not what I meant," he hisses. "You… You said _girlfriend_."

Maka freezes. The blood drains from her face.

"You were my… _girlfriend_, in this other universe." His voice is tight. Barely controlled. "Since when?"

She swallows thickly. "I… A couple years after the moon. When I was sixteen."

"Right. So you were with him, that Soul, all these years, and now you're stuck here with me." His smile is empty. "How lucky for you. No wonder you can barely look me in the eyes. I must seem so horrendous in comparison." His fingers twitch, as if reaching towards his face—towards his scar—and Maka gasps out loud.

"_No_," she says, horrified. "No! That's not it at all. Soul, I—"

"Don't," he says, voice tighter than coiled wire. "Don't you dare say my name."

"Then please, listen to me," she begs. "You're right. I don't want to be here. But not because of you—because of _him_. The other you. The one I know. He saw me get sucked into a black hole right in front of him and I know he must be killing himself over what happened—he must be so worried—and I just—I want him to know I'm okay. I want them _all_ to know I'm okay."

"Right." He's back to being cold, flat. Expressionless.

It _hurts_. It hurts so much. "I want to _help_ you. Please, I—I know you think I'm useless, and I know my time is limited, that I'm only here until Kid finds another wraith that can send me back—but I—I want to do something, while I'm around. Fix things. Make it better somehow." Tears start falling down her face, and maybe it's actually affecting him or he's just getting tired of her mess, but she thinks she sees something in him change.

"You want to help?" he asks coolly.

Maka bobs her head up and down, eager. "More than anything."

"Then stay the fuck out of my way."

It hits her like a slap.

"You're useless. You're idealistic. You're only going to get yourself killed. I'm one of the last remaining Death Scythes that actually gives enough of a damn to keep fighting for this pointless fucking place, and I have better things to do than to be stuck babysitting a worthless little brat like you."

Her vision blurs. "That's not fair. If you didn't want me here—"

"Of course I don't fucking want you here," he all but snaps. "You just drop in, out of the blue, oblivious, out of place, unaware, claiming to be Maka—"

"I _am_ Maka!"

"That's what you keep saying. That's what, for some reason, Kid chooses to believe."

"Because it's true!" she cries. "And I'm not useless, damn it. I'm a three-star meister and one of our Lord Death's most trusted companions. I can fight—"

"This coming from the girl who was almost killed by a low-level snake demon." He laughs lowly. It's a chilling, unamused sound.

Her cheeks burn. "I was caught off guard."

"I don't know what magical fairyland you came from, but in this world, we don't have the luxury of being caught off guard. One mistake, one slip-up, one blink of hesitation—that's all it'll take to get you killed. And you _will_ be killed," he says. "I'm sure if it. And this time, I'm not going to be responsible for it when it happens."

There's a moment in every argument when both sides know it's over. They don't always have to say it—in Soul and Maka's case, thanks to her stubbornness, they often never do—but it's there. It's the end. They've reached a silent agreement. And everything will be okay.

This is not that moment.

"If you don't want me here," she begins, then cuts off, having to swallow the thick lump in her throat before starting over. "If you don't want me here, I can leave. Stay with Kid. Get out of your hair."

His response is not what she expected. His face closes off. He turns his head away, baring the side without his scar. "Go then. But I'm not driving you. You can get there yourself."

**ii. **

What had taken under an hour by car takes a few hours on foot.

She usually moves pretty fast—the kind of person who growls internally every time she's stuck behind some snail walker on the street—but maybe it's her tears, or a possible concussion, or the fact that she has no idea where the hell she's going and only uses the faint glow of Kid's soul in the distance to guide her, but she feels like it takes her twice as long as it should.

Then again, it might also have to do with the fact that she's hoping Soul will ask her to stop.

She keeps expecting him to come running after her, yelling at her for thinking she could wander off on her own, telling her she's an idiot an stupid but he won't let her die, not like this—but he doesn't.

She remains alone, stumbling through a forest she doesn't know—a forest that shouldn't exist—trying not to break.

By the time she reaches the Gallows, she's exhausted, both physically and mentally. Her body aches. Her bones feel like rubber. Her cheeks are stained with tears.

It's a miracle she wasn't attacked by any demons on her way. Despite how much it hurt to hear it, Soul was right. She's fucking useless on her own.

Worst of all is that Kid seems to be expecting her. He's waiting by the front door when she arrives, looking entirely too still and untouchable standing in front of his run down house.

"There's a spare bedroom ready for you on the third floor," he murmurs before she can say anything. "Second door on the left. Same as always."

She's lucky he's so kind because he doesn't say a word as she cries into his chest.

**ii. **

It's late by the time he puts Maka to bed. Or early, depending on how you look at it. The sun will be rising soon, bringing forth another day none of them are ready to face, and Kid has a feeling he won't be getting a single hour of sleep tonight. Which sounds like every other night he's had for the past five years.

He shuts Maka's door quietly. Heads down the stairs.

Steps outside, not bothering to move off his front porch as he calls out to the street. "Aren't you going to say hello?"

There's a beat of silence, then Soul emerges from the shadows. "There's no way that girl is Maka," he says instantly. "Maka would've known I was following her the instant I tried to make a move."

"She was upset and you've become very adept at concealing your soul over the years. Her kind of soul perception only strengthens with focus. Intent. I'd have been surprised if she _did_ notice you."

"It's not her," Soul repeats, unhearing. "It can't be. I won't accept it."

"Would it be easier for you? To believe that? Would it make you feel better about making her cry so much?"

The Death Scythe doesn't flinch, but Kid knows his heart does. "Why?"

"There are a lot of questions you could be asking. You're going to have to be more specific than that."

"Don't fuck with me right now, damn it! I'm not in the mood. I want to know why she's here. Why the wraith called for her. Why she came in the first place when it's achingly clear she didn't want to come—because you and I both know how this works. A death spirit can't truly steal a person from their world if they don't agree to leave."

"Maybe she wanted to see you," the reaper offers, filled with empty amusement.

Soul lets out a dark laugh. "Yeah, because of course she'd want a hideous, fucked-up replica of the boy she loves when she can have a whole version instead."

It's a quiet night outside. That in itself is quite rare. The attacks in DC may have slowed considerably with the heavy decrease in living humans to feed on, but their city is still a beacon for the supernatural and the fact that there's a lack of powerful demon attacks is concerning to say the least. The only reason it could be quiet tonight is if this is the calm before the storm.

Kid is tired of it. So tired.

And so he says, "Why don't you ask me the question you really want to ask? I can feel your hatred, feel the burning fire in your soul. You're angry. You're in pain. You want to know why this Maka survived and your Maka didn't."

Soul is tired, too, Kid realizes, which becomes very evident in his empty smile. "Sorry to burst your bubble, Kid, but that's where you're wrong. That's one thing I never have to wonder about because I already know the answer."

With that, he turns to go, blurring back into the shadows. Leaving the reaper staring after him.

But it's just as well. Because Kid knows the answer, too.

_She's dead because I failed her. _


	2. i've been here the whole time

**a/n:** i just want them to be happy.

fun fact: i've set this fic in the same universe as last year's resbang, _**unrequited**_, which you can use as a backstory as to how soul and maka get together in the canon timeline, but it isn't necessary to read it beforehand. aside from some minor references and just-for-fun parallels, both stories exist completely on their own. (:

* * *

**chapter two: singing you a song**

_you can't lose what you never had. or so they say. _

* * *

_**here. **_

_Their bed is colder without her in it. It's pathetic how quickly he can tell the difference. _

_Woken an emptiness he can't explain, Soul immediately reaches his hand out, fingers grappling over cool sheets and empty space. The weight in his chest from her absence brings back all his adolescent fears in a rush—she's gone, she left him, he doesn't deserve her, she finally realized she could do so much better than the worthless being that he is—and it's a fight to stay afloat. _

_He lets himself ride the panic for a brief moment before stifling his anxiety into a tightly locked box. He can feel her soul not far away, so filled with sorrow. She doesn't need to deal with his pitiful attachment issues, too. _

"_Sorry," she whispers when he finds her in the living room. _

_She's sitting in front of the window, knees pulled to her chest, a thin blanket drowning her small frame. The only light is from the tiny bead on the fire alarm and the glowing numbers on the kitchen stove and microwave. _

_Night always feels so much darker these days. It's the downside of a blackened moon. _

_Pressing his lips against her skin, he curls his body around her from behind and buries his face in the crook of her neck. He can feel the tension leave his shoulders at the physical contact, exhaling low and deep. "Another nightmare?" _

"_Kind of." She hesitates briefly before reaching her hand back to rest on his neck. _

_Immediately, he's swarmed with images that aren't his. Dark shadows, teeming with madness. Haunted screams echoing behind their friends' filthy, defeated shoulders. His face, ragged, worn, in front of her, begging for something neither of them can hear. _

_Blood. So much blood. _

_He tightens his grip on her. "Maka…" _

"_I know," she says. "I just… We defeated the kishin. The Witch Treaty is thriving. For the first time in decades, there's actual peace in our world—true, thriving change—and I don't—I don't understand why I keep dreaming about this." _

"_Peace or not, we still lived through war. It's natural to still be affected."_

"_Maybe," she agrees, though he knows she's just placating him so he doesn't worry about her. _

"_I'm right here, Maka." _

"_I know." _

"_We're okay." _

"_I know." _

"_I'm not going anywhere." _

"_I know," she says again, and after another pause, this one filled with unspoken terror, she whispers, "But what if I _am_?" _

* * *

_**there. **_

It feels like she barely manages to close her eyes when she's woken by shattering glass.

Before Maka can process what's happening, blinking lethargically through the thick haze of unconsciousness that threatens to drown her, something thick and prickly tightens around her ankle and yanks hard enough that she goes flying off the bed.

She lands with a thud, her hip bruising against the ground. When she tries to crawl onto her knees, the thing wrapped around her ankle pulls again, forcing her to remain sprawled out on her side and elbows. She glances back to see what's holding her down, but in the darkness of the guest room, she can only see shadows upon shadows.

_What the—? _

Suddenly, she's flipped over onto her back as the prickly bind slithers over her to pin her wrists as well as her other ankle. Now that she's aware that this isn't some fluke of nature, she can make out the slithery shapes of vine-like ropes, except instead of being green and earthy, they're pure black and fluid as if they're dripping with ebony paint instead of being made purely of shadows.

For a moment, she's so stunned that she can't even move, and then, when she regains her senses, she learns she physically _can't_ move, those vine-like shadows holding her in place as tightly as coiled wire. No matter how much she thrashes and yanks against them, they refuse to budge.

"Help," Maka tries to scream, but then a figure jumps on top of her, clamming one dark hand over her mouth as a horrifying, mutated face appears inches away from hers.

Small, beady eyes shining with malice. Scaly, inky skin that seems to drip shadows just like the vines. A wide mouth overfilled with thin, jagged teeth. Angular, misshapen shoulders that hunch significantly as the creature leans over her frame.

Its breath is hot and putrid against her face and she screams into the hand clamped over her mouth as its lips pull back into a terrifying smile.

"Prrrrrretttyy thiiiiinggg," it hisses. "Prrrretttyy souuul."

And then it bites into her shoulder.

Maka screams. The pain is _searing_, more like someone is burning through her flesh than simply biting into it with horrifying teeth. Pleased with her agonized sounds, the creature makes the mistake of lowering its defences with its assault, which allows Maka to anchor her hands enough to blast her soul wavelength through its monstrous torso.

It releases her with an animalistic screech. Taking advantage of that moment to scramble towards the door, Maka bursts through with enough force that Kid grunts when she rams into his chest. Before she can say anything, he tugs her behind him with one hand and jerks Harvar—already transformed into a spear—through the monster that leaps at them with an unrestrained cry.

It explodes into nothing but seared demon flesh and smoke.

"Kid—" she starts to say, still stunned and half-asleep as she presses a hand to staunch her shoulder's bleeding, but the reaper whirls on her, his eyes vibrant. Almost wild.

"You need to go. _Now_."

"But—"

"That thing that attacked? It's barely a pawn. And it isn't alone. They're coming for _you_."

"For me? Why?"

Kid reaches a hand to cup the back of her neck, his expression dark and earnest. "I was hoping we'd have longer to assimilate you into our world instead of thrusting you straight into the chaos, but it seems things are moving more quickly than I'd expected. Asura must already sense you're here. And if he thinks we believe you can do something to stop him, he will do everything in his power to eliminate you first."

"And you… you knew he'd come after me," she realizes, horror settling in her bones. "_Fuck_, Kid, I'm so sorry. If I'd known I would lead them here—"

"_Stop. Talking_," he says fiercely. "I'm not stupid, Maka. Keeping you here was never a risk I hesitated to take. But even worse is endangering your life and I will die before I let that happen, so you need to leave before the swarm gets here and tries to make another pass at your soul."

"What? No! If they're attacking because of me, there's no way I'm just going to run and leave you guys to—_what the hell are you doing?"_ she breaks off to cry out when the reaper merely scoops her up in his arms and stalks towards the broken window with unwavering purpose. "_Kid!"_

"You can't be of use to us here," he tells her. "Not without a weapon. But these monsters are nothing. Harvar and I can stall them while you do something for me—something only you can do."

Green eyes widen. "Anything."

"Take Soul and find a witch."

"Soul? But—he's nearly an hour away." Several if she tries to make it by foot again. "Plus, there's no way he'd ever agree to work with me for anything, not after he was so glad to be rid of me last night."

"For someone who claims to have known him best in another life, you really don't understand him at all." His lips twist wryly. "Did you really think Soul would ever let you out of his sight in a world like this for even a second?"

"He's… upset with me."

"We're all upset," says Kid, "but it's never been because you're here." He presses a kiss to the top of her head, short and sweet. _Too_ sweet. Like he's not sure he'll ever see her again. "Keep a mirror on hand. I'll be in contact."

And then he drops her—right out of the third-story window.

More stunned than scared, it takes her nearly a full heartbeat before she's able to react, twisting to land agily on her feet. But before she can reach the ground, something swift plucks her right from the sky, elbows anchored beneath her knees and shoulders.

The person lands nimbly with her carried in his arms and she looks up at his face with shock, feeling like a very surprised princess.

"_Soul_." Kid was right; he's really here. How did she not notice until now? Where has he been lingering? And why would he go to all this trouble just to follow a girl he claims is nothing but a nuisance?

"Can you walk?" he asks swiftly, even as he keeps sprinting down the street, away from the Gallows Manor.

"I'm sorry?"

"Can you walk," Soul repeats, this time with significantly less patience. "I'll carry you if you're injured, but until we're clear of the area, I prefer to have my hands free in case of an attack."

Right. "I—I'm good."

He doesn't slow down for another few blocks, and even then, he only takes a moment to set her back down on her feet before he jerks his chin, indicating that they keep moving right away.

"You're still wearing my clothes," he says quietly as they dark amongst shadows. The ends of her pants unravel a bit with her movement, but she's careful to kick them up with each step so she doesn't have to stop to roll the edges again. It's not like they'll stay up anyway. "Didn't Kid give you something else to change into?"

He did. "Does it matter?"

A pause. "No. I guess it doesn't." Another corner, another winding strip. "What does he need you to do?" When she looks surprised, Soul lets out a dark laugh. "Trust me, I know you'd never agree to leave a battle unless you were given a higher purpose. And Kid definitely wouldn't have left you to me if he had any other choice."

"He… wants me to find a witch." Though she isn't sure why. From what little they've told her about this world, it's clear that the witches never came to aid them during the war and that heavily impacted how they fared in the Battle on the Moon. It was a miracle they made it out of there alive—though of course, not without casualties.

If the witches had decided the DWMA wasn't to be trusted before, Maka doubts they'll suddenly agree to work together now, especially since weapons and meisters had continued to hunt witches following the apocalypse so they would have the strength to stay alive.

Soul, on the other hand, seems to understand Kid's intent too well.

"He must believe your story. Probably thinks that if the witches helped save your world, they could be the key to redeeming ours." He scoffs lowly, not so much scathing disbelief but rather dark amusement. "He's always been far too gullible for his own good."

Maka's brows pull together. "Are you saying you still don't trust me? Even after all I've told you?"

"I don't trust anyone," is all he says. "Now stop talking. I don't want to attract any more demons than I have to until we're out of the city."

"Are we flying?"

Had she not been so focused on his soul, she might've missed the way it flinched at her words. "No. We'll take my bike. It's parked by the school."

Her chest tightens, but she doesn't comment on it. She's not stupid. Despite how much easier it would be to fly, they can't travel by air without flawless resonance, and this version of her weapon would rather peel his skin off than allow her anywhere near his soul. "It won't be easy to find a witch," she warns. "We might be gone for a while. You don't have to come with me. You can back out now."

He doesn't even look at her when he responds. "You'll be dead within the hour if I send you outside the city on your own."

"That's not your responsibility."

His voice is quiet as they hear the distant sounds of demons screeching far behind them. "Isn't it?"

**ii. **

As it turns out, spending a couple hours clinging to her former weapon on the back of his motorcycle isn't any less awkward than if she'd ridden him like a broom.

By the time he starts to slow, they managed to make it out of Death City, through the small gated path that cut through the forest, and back to the closest bout of civilization to the east. And that was only after spending far too long under the blistering heat of the rising sun as they crossed the desert, which somehow made her feel hot and burnt on the outside even though her bones were stiff from the cold.

At least, this is _supposed_ to be civilization. This city is somehow even worse off than her hometown, with shattered buildings, cracked, deserted streets, and not a single other soul within its narrow perimeter.

Even worse is the _air_. Without Kid's magical forest purifying the surrounding madness, it's like moving through a thick sludge of mud, pressing down on her shoulders with the force of ten weighted blankets.

Part of her is terrified of Soul being out in an atmosphere like this when he used to succumb so easily to insanity, but he seems strangely centered. He must be fairly used to this after having lived through it for so long, but it still makes her wonder how he survived in the first place.

It was never a secret that Kid's father viewed Soul's black blood as somewhat of a beneficial liability. Helpful in battle, but also a ticking time bomb strapped to his chest.

No one knew how much time he had left before he would burst. Most of them assumed Maka would be his trigger and that if anything were to happen to her, his demise would not be far behind. And yet here he is, in this alternate timeline, five years after her passing, still alive. Maybe not _okay_, but at least breathing. Focused. Untainted by madness.

She doesn't understand it. But then, she doesn't understand a lot of things.

Only when the bike pulls into the parking lot of an abandoned motel does she realize how heavy his soul is. He is _exhausted_. Deep shadows weighing on his back and a tension to his shoulders that could only be attributed to the fight someone has when they're struggling to stay awake… It occurs to her that if he'd followed her since the moment she left his cabin and had been so quick to respond to the attack at the Gallows despite not crashing there, he must've gotten less sleep than her—if any at all.

Guilt is her first instinct. Affection comes next. She wants to smooth those lines with a kiss but refrains, knowing any act of love in this world could easily be misconstrued as an act of war.

"If we'd taken a car, we could've taken turns driving," she says instead, letting her concern peek through as if shedding her own mask will somehow make him trust her more. "I doubt you got any more sleep than I did last night. You could probably use a nap."

He snorts as he flicks the kickstand in place and swings his leg off the bike. "You expect me to believe you actually got your license?"

"I—shut up!" she yelps with embarrassment. "It's not my fault I was a good meister and always let you drive." Soul preferred to remain behind the wheel, and since she never went anywhere of distance without him, she never felt the need to learn. "Besides, it can't be that different from driving a go-kart or something."

"Back when we used to go racing, you were the only one who never made it once around the track because you couldn't stop ramming into Black Star or the hay exterior. Unless you magically developed a competent sense of speed or self-preservation, I'm pretty sure I'd be better off fighting blind than trusting you behind the wheel of any vehicle."

"I was _fourteen!_"

He levels her with a look. "You spent years as a child soldier who hunted a hundred tainted souls before you even hit puberty. Age isn't an excuse for not excelling at something, not for you."

Though it's more of an insult than anything else, she can't help the way her cheeks flush like he's given her the highest compliment. "Left, gas. Right, break. What else is there to know?"

His face pulls into a grimace as if she's said something so profoundly wrong it's actually giving him a headache. "And you wonder why I never let you drive…" He jerks his head toward the horseshoe of stacked apartments. "Come on."

"Wait, why are we stopping here? There aren't any witches nearby." Her soul perception might not be as powerful without resonance and she hasn't been able to pinpoint the exact location of any witches, but she knows they still have a ways to go in this direction before they run into one. Which makes sense considering no self-respecting witch would be caught dead anywhere near the main base for the school that hunts their kind.

"For all we know, trying to have a civil conversation with a witch is going to result in another attempt on our lives, and I really don't want to have to deal with it on negative twenty hours of sleep." Soul shuffles forward, shoulders taut, leaving her to scramble after him. "We'll be safe for the next few hours, at least until night falls again. This place isn't as much of a target as Death City. Might as well take advantage of that and get some rest while we can."

The room is clean—for the most part. At least, as clean as an abandoned room in a post-apocalyptic world can possibly be.

There are two full-sized beds, a dresser, a desk, and a tiny alcove with a microwave and coffee station with items she's not sure she trusts five years post-set-up date. It's not exactly the cosiest of places, but it'll do. And even though the city is filled with empty houses with empty beds and probably much nicer accommodations literally anywhere else, Maka understands why he chose it.

There's something wrong about crashing in a home that isn't yours. Especially one that belonged to someone who likely died because you weren't able to save them.

The world may be a free-for-all post-apocalypse, but there are some lines even monsters won't cross.

Unsurprisingly, Soul takes the bed by the window, the same way he always slept on the side closest to the door whenever they crashed together. Her silent protector, always wordlessly putting himself between her and any possible dangers that might come through.

"Do you want to sleep first?" he asks quietly.

She immediately shakes her head. "I'm not tired. You go ahead. You need it more than I do." Though she can tell he doesn't want to leave her alone with the sole burden of protecting them, she promises, "I'll wake you if I sense any strange activity nearby. Please. Get some rest. I don't want you fighting like this."

He must be more exhausted than she realized because he doesn't protest further.

He passes out quickly, barely under the covers. She notices his shoes are still on, probably because he's used to having to get up in a flash with no chance to do even throw on some footwear.

The fact that this world has gotten so bad he's disallowed himself the privilege of sleeping barefoot makes her want to cry. He's been put through so much. Five years, all on his own, cut off from Kid, looked down on by Liz and Harvar.

What is wrong with her friends? Did something happen to Black Star and Patty?

Where is her father?

Soul has only been asleep for maybe five minutes when Maka realizes the silence might drive her insane. Waiting around has always been her least favorite part of war and it was by far the component she least excelled at. Impatience is ingrained in her blood; sitting still is impossible if she doesn't have something to obsess over.

On the surface, she may be able to wear the mask of a tranquil sea, but underneath there is always violent turbulence. A tsunami, waiting to break free. Her entire being is a storm and keeping it under wraps seems so impossible most days she's not sure how she's survived this long.

Then her partner begins to stir in his sleep, his soul so connected to hers, even in anger, especially with his guard down with his unconsciousness, and she _knows_.

It's because of him. Always him.

Forcing her soul to calm is a lot easier when she's doing it for someone else. Every time she feels the anxiety rise again, she shoves it down, imagining the tense edges of his face, the sad darkness hiding behind his irises, the flickering fire she can't stop feeling from him despite not having any idea what must be stoking it.

She's so focused on trying to tame her emotions that she almost doesn't recognize the faint ringing sound in the background until she hears Kid's voice.

"Maka? Are you there?"

She jumps up so quickly she almost falls flat on her face, rushing to the bathroom and carefully closing the door so quietly it takes more than a few breaths. Her eyes don't leave Soul's sleeping form until it physically disappears behind the barrier of the wood.

"Is everything alright?" Kid asks through the mirror. He looks to be in one piece, a little brushed with dirt but otherwise unharmed. Harvar stands several feet behind him, facing off to the side.

Nodding, she says, "Soul's just taking a quick nap before we continue pursuing a witch. We shouldn't be too far off and then we'll be able to connect with you before making contact, hopefully not scaring her off."

"Have you two managed to pinpoint the exact location of one?"

She's not quick enough to hide her wince. "I, um… Not exactly," she admits. "But it's fine! My resonance has grown strong enough on its own that I can determine the general direction we need to travel in, and I'll definitely be able to sense it when we get closer."

"Maka…"

"Please, Kid," she begs. "You've seen what my presence has been doing to him. He doesn't want to resonate with me. I can't force him."

"We've all done things we didn't want to do," replies the reaper. "Soul, of all people, should know that. If he's not willing to put everything on the line to find a way to fix this mess—to protect you—then maybe I should've sent you with someone else after all."

"No!" she bursts out, the whisper seeming harsh with how hard it is to control it. "No," she repeats, quieter this time but just as emphatic. "Soul and I will be fine. It's not a problem. I promise, we'll find a witch and we won't let you down."

Even through the mirror, she can sense the displeasure in Kid's soul, but he is benevolent enough not to voice it. "Do you know what I need you to do?"

She nods, expression going deathly serious. "You want to broach the possibility of a treaty like the one we had in my timeline."

"Yes. It won't be easy. As you know, things played out differently during the Battle on the Moon. The witches never came to our aid despite me begging them to, and in the end, you lost your life and we lost the war. But I know this isn't the outcome they wanted; they never expected it to get this bad. We have a chance to change things. If they hear how differently things could play out—if they believe there can truly be peace between our people—they have to be more open to change."

Biting her lip, she lets her gaze drop south to the dusty sink handle. "You're putting a lot of faith in me. I—I know I was some kind of Hail Mary or whatever, a last-ditch effort to help save the world, but I… Kid, it might be a mistake. I'm really not that important. Something must've gone wrong when the wraith granted your wish, and I don't want you to put all your eggs in one basket only to realize that basket had always been broken."

"Maka." There's something in his voice that pulls her eyes upward so they meet the warm gold of his. Sometimes she forgets how pretty the reaper is, especially here, like this, in a world that has run him ragged, but it's impossible not to notice when he looks at her like this. "You being here has never been a mistake. I can promise you that."

Her cheeks are vaguely pink. "If you insist… _Lord Death_."

Kid grimaces at the nickname—the way he always does when she uses it, even in her world—and his gaze flickers to the door off-screen to hide his awkwardness. "Go ahead and get some rest. Find a compact. Call me when you can. We've cleared Asura's minions from Death City and we'll be waiting on standby if anything happens."

"You won't come anyway, even though you've finished fighting over there?"

His eyes smile. "You don't need me."

After ending the mirror call, the next couple hours pass very slowly. Maka tries to occupy herself as best as she can without waking Soul, but there's only so much she can do within the confines of a compact motel room.

This would be so much easier if she had a book—though admittedly she isn't sure she'd be able to scrounge up the mental energy to absorb the words anyway. Instead, she works on her physical energy, shutting the door to the bathroom again so she can do some light yoga warm-ups to keep her body temperature up.

The bike ride here would've frozen her solid if not for the sweltering sun, and even though this motel has heating, her body still harbors a residual chill she just can't shake.

Anything is better than sitting still and being forced to deal with the cycle of thoughts going through her head—but she can't fight off them all. A few doubts slip in, little obsessions, cruel words of self-deprecation she always has to work so hard to suppress.

_You're a mistake. Soul can't even stand to look at you. Won't let you touch him. He must think you're so useless. Pathetic. Maybe even wonders what the hell his other self is thinking, tying himself down to a weak, temperamental little girl like you. _

_You are a fraud. Your presence is worthless. What makes you think you can do anything to help your friends that they haven't already tried themselves? Who do you think you're fooling? You don't belong here. You can't save them. _

_You don't deserve him._

She doesn't realize she's stopped stretching until she hears a faint whimper coming from the bedroom. Pulse racing, she pushes through the door, expecting to see some big, dark monster trying to crawl through the windows to get at Soul, but the only thing she gets is her unconscious partner, twisting around in his bed.

Maka almost exhales a sigh of relief, but then she hears it again. Another pained breath.

She moves to his bedside like lightning, leaning over the mattress with concern. His face is chalk pale, his face lined with tension, and yet there's a faint sheen of sweat starting to gather on his skin as he starts to pant, low and distressed.

"_Maka_."

She nearly jumps out of her skin.

"Maka," he gasps again, his body twisting in his slumber, hands clenched in the sheets. "Maka, _no_. Please, I—I can't—I don't—"

"Soul?" she whispers.

His torso jerks as he gasps even louder, full-out panting now, so rapidly she's terrified he's going to drive himself into a panic attack. He's body is lined with so much tension it must be painful, and she can practically feel the heat emanating from him, like a fire or a furnace or something that's overheating and is about to explode

"_No!_" he cries out suddenly. "Stop it, stop it, don't do this, please, I—" And then he screams. Full-out _wails_, like someone is tearing his heart from his chest and shredding it to nothing.

"Soul!" Suddenly scared, she reaches for his shoulder, about to shake him awake—but just as suddenly, his eyes snap open and he grabs her hand, yanks her body down to his, and quickly rolls her under him, all in an instant.

His eyes are wild, untamed. Even shackling her wrists, his hands are violently shaking, uncontrollable, just like the panic in his gaze.

Maybe she should feel terrified, pinned beneath him when he looks so feral, but she can't bring herself to be anything but concerned.

"Soul?" she whispers. "Are you okay? You were screaming."

His grip tightens but she makes sure not to react. Aside from being forced to protect her, and carry her, and have her hold onto him on his bike, this is the first time he's touched her of his own free will, without any outside factors extorting him to. She can't flinch away from him now. She'd never forgive herself.

Their eyes hold, a charged stalemate. Up close, his scar looks more prominent, reaching across his face like spilled ink spoiling an otherwise perfect canvas, but he's still beautiful. So beautiful she can barely stand it. He must be able to see the worship in her expression because he is the first to break their locked eyes, closing them with an exhaled shudder.

He releases her wrists. However, instead of letting her go, he merely moves his arms as if to cradle her, anchoring his body over hers. His head dips low, shoulders curling in, moving to rest his lips on the skin just above her collarbone. Just a tiny touch, barely even a kiss, but it's enough that a violent shiver wracks through her body.

Soul stills. Then presses deeper.

She gasps out loud, unable to fight her body's reaction. Emboldened by her reaction, he drags his lips across her shoulder, then up her neck, suckling deeply. His tongue darts out to taste her skin and her hips buck up, unbidden, a cry ripped from her throat.

He groans deeply. "_Maka_." His breath is hot and wet on her skin. She wants it everywhere. His kisses grow bolder now, tracing every line of her neck, every curve, dipping slightly, just enough to tease the swell of her breast and extract a desperate cry from her chest. Then he bites down carefully and she slowly loses her mind.

What the hell is she doing? This isn't right. He isn't hers.

But his soul—it's the same. The same as the one belonging to the man she loves, the man she'd do everything for, the man she can never, ever say no to, not for anything important, no matter how hard she tries. Every time he's near her, it's like a fire lit within her core. A low simmer, slowly stirring her to life, but it's not enough, not nearly enough.

She wants to _burn_.

His mouth has creeped up her neck, over her jaw, claiming the skin just beside her lips as they both pant into each other. For a moment, his lips brush just millimeters from hers, hovering above, a gun cocked and loaded, ready to ruin her, and she needs him with a ferocity that drives her _mad_.

And then—nothing. He doesn't steal her soul, doesn't close that gap.

Her eyes flicker open, hooded, needy, _wanting_, just in time to see the animalistic hunger in his.

And then he's gone.

Off the bed, off of _her_, stalking off towards the bathroom and slamming the door shut behind him hard enough to shake the entire room.

She lays there, unmoving except for the heavy rise and fall of her chest. God, what is wrong with her? How could she do that? How could she _want_ that? And it's not even a past want, it's _current_, insistent, blinding, pleading, begging to feel his lips on her skin again, wanting him to touch her more than she's ever needed to breathe.

Soul has an excuse. He just woke up from a nightmare and was probably disoriented by her presence considering he's been forced to go five years without it.

But Maka? She has no such defense. She _deserves_ to feel as flayed open and wrought as she does.

On the other side of the door, she hears a curse then a loud crash as if something shatters into the mirror.

It takes everything she has not to cry.

By the time he returns from the bathroom, Maka has already zipped her coat back up—the one they grabbed from a random shop before leaving Death City—as well as slipped her stolen boots on her feet. Soul takes that as his cue to redress in his outerwear too, and only when he's tugged on his last shoe does he speak.

"Are you sure you don't want to rest first?"

She shakes her head. "Let's get this over with."

* * *

_**here. **_

She's so pretty in his dreams, green eyes brighter than starlight, blond hair spilling across the pillow like a halo.

She's pretty always, of course—his tiny, powerful meister with the soft cheeks and sinful hips—but she's especially beautiful beneath him, thighs parted and face flushed and chest panting against his. Their lips slant together desperately, hands gripping at flesh and sweat beading across skin, and they're connected as much as two people can possibly be connected and it's _still not enough_.

"Soul," she gasps as her body arcs up into his thrusts. "Nn! _Please!_"

He groans and presses deeper, harder, filling her as much as he possibly can even though just the _thought_ of any part of him being able to fit inside her—so small, so delicate, so fucking perfect—makes him nearly lose his mind.

"_Please_."

They're both panting now, breathless. It's like the world around them doesn't even exist, just spaces and shadows and uniform shapes blurring into nothing in his peripheral vision—though it hardly matters anyway. The only thing that exists for him is _her_. The way she feels, the way she smells, the way she tastes…

But then she's trembling and tightening her arms around him, and though the nature of what they're doing could mask the reason behind it, somehow he knows it's something different.

"Please," she whispers again, this time less filled with desire and more with terror. "Please don't let them take me. I don't want to go."

His movements halt; freeze. "Wh—"

And then she's gone. Suddenly it's like the world has flipped entirely, Maka no longer being pinned beneath his hips and the blurry bed completely vanished. He's standing now, fully clothed, still panting as he turns around in this empty black space, screaming for his meister.

"Maka? Maka, where are you?!"

"Soul." Her voice echoes around him, incorporeal, _sobbing_, and it fucking burns him that he can't gather her up in his arms and hold her until he's forced to let go. "Please. I don't want to be here, it _hurts_, everything hurts, I can't—"

"Maka!" He's running now, full-out sprinting, though to where he doesn't know. Nothing about the empty blackness changes no matter how fast he pumps his legs and all he can hear and feel and hate is the sound of her sobs.

"Soul, _please_."

The agony in her voice makes his stomach feel shredded.

"Please."

He runs faster. The darkness grows. He feels suffocated. He _can't find her_.

"Soul—"

"I'm coming for you, Maka! Tell me where you are!"

"_Soul!_"

He jerks awake with a vengeance, jumping out of his chair so quickly he almost takes Kid's head off. The reaper backs up in time to expertly dodge his reflexive blows, and only when Soul's vision starts to focus enough to recognize the tall stacks and antique tables of the DWMA library does his start to calm down.

Kid doesn't do pity, but the expression on his face is very close. "I think it's time you head home."

"No, I—_no_. It's fine. _I'm_ fine." Soul runs a hand down his face, blinks at the disarray of half-opened books and notes spread all across the table, and tries to remember what the hell kind of dimension he landed in where he's desperate to get back to the books.

"You've been in the library more in the past twenty-four hours than you have your entire life. How do you think Maka is going to feel knowing this is why?"

His jaw sets. "She'll understand."

"She'll understand you need to _rest_," stresses Kid. "Killing yourself over this isn't the way to be productive. It won't bring her back. The only thing you can do is wait, and there's no reason you have to spend that time stressing over infinite possibilities."

"You want me to _wait_? You're fucking kidding me, right? She was taken by a _death spirit!_ I'm not just going to sit around eating Chinese takeout in my living room while she's out there, likely stranded in a world that's pretty much dying, suffering because I couldn't save her."

"This isn't on you, Soul. Blood phantoms are as indestructible as their masters. It wouldn't have stopped until it had her. The moment the other side made the deal, Maka was already theirs."

He lets out a dark laugh. "Is that supposed to make me feel better? Don't blame yourself because you never stood a chance anyway? No." He shakes his head, expression like granite. "I refuse. I'm not leaving here until I find a way to bring her back."

"Soul—"

"If you're not going to help me, you can show yourself out."

Soul doesn't look at the reaper as he settles back in that uncomfortable wooden chair and repositions the book in front of him, but he can feel Kid's impenetrable stare like a weight on his chest.

It's a look he knows well, and he should probably expect the next words that come out of the reaper's mouth but for some reason they still hit him like a brick.

"You're not the only one who's upset that she's gone."

A heavy weight settles in his stomach. Soul stares blankly at the open book in front of him as if that will be enough to absorb the information into his brain, and he hates hates _hates_ the feeling in his gut that makes it impossible to despise the reaper, not even a little bit. Hates even more that when all pretenses are stripped and they're really being truthful, they know the best friend they each have aside from Maka is each other.

And right now, they both really need a friend.

"I think she knew." The word feels wrought from Soul's throat, like trying to pull out an old tooth that isn't even loose, but he slams the floss-tied door open anyway. "She had nightmares. For weeks before they took her, she—she kept having these _dreams_, these images, that somewhere out there we needed her and were dying without her and she was covered in blood. Every time she came out of it, her eyes would be so haunted. She could barely hold back her tears." He looks up from the table, his crimson eyes pleading. "What if that's it? What if that's the place she is now? If she could barely stand a few hours asleep in that world, thinking it was all a dream, how is she going to survive knowing that it's all real? You know how big her heart is. How the hell am I supposed to save her from something like that?"

"You just have to be there for her," Kid says simply. "Sometimes that's all you _can_ do."

His hands clench into fists. "I can't just sit here and doing nothing while she's out there on her own, probably suffering or fighting for her life or god knows what else. Please don't make me."

A long moment passes in heavy silence. Then, after exhaling deeply, Kid walks around the table and primly takes a seat across from him. "Well, I guess we better get reading."

* * *

_**there. **_

She doesn't sense the witch's soul until they've crossed the border into Arizona.

It doesn't slam into her the way it does when a witch releases soul protect. It's far more subtle than that, more like an otherworldly feeling—a deep, innate weight in her bones—than something she can confirm with her five senses. Without resonance, that feeling is even more subdued and she almost misses the slight shift in the air before she realizes what it means.

Carefully, she nudges Soul's hip with her thigh and speaks into his ear. "Take the next exit. We're almost there."

She can't hear his answer over the wind, but she takes pleasure in the fact that he doesn't hesitate to follow her lead.

Eventually, they pull up in front of an old bungalow in a forested neighborhood that was probably rife with giggling children biking down the streets back before most of the population became demon food and pre-kishin. Now, the streets resemble an old Halloween movie where tumbleweed crosses the frame and everything is a little too grey to be real. The surrounding trees are lush, but the leaves are black instead of green.

The soul isn't one she recognizes, which isn't surprising. During her five years as a woefully underaged and doe-eyed ambassador, Maka learned that there were far more witches in existence that she ever believed. They were just in hiding. And though many had begun to feel comfortable letting their guard down in public after the treaty was formed, most still chose to remain under the radar.

A few years of good-intentioned peace was not enough to erase centuries of hate. They were protecting themselves and Maka didn't blame them.

It's no wonder it was even harder to find a nearby witch in this version of her world.

To Soul's credit, he doesn't ask her if she's sure. He merely leads the way up the dirty, narrow path and up a front porch that doesn't like it could last in a light drizzle, let alone beneath both of their weights.

Just before they reach the door, he abruptly stops walking. Maka rams into his back and grunts in annoyance, but before she can tell him to watch it, she realizes he has turned around, a giant, hunched pillar that towers over her, more like a protective shadow than a monster.

"Soul?"

His eyes tighten. "When we're in there, you stay by my side at all times and we leave if anything seems even remotely suspicious. I don't care what the witch says; we stay together. Okay?"

She softens. "Okay."

They ring the doorbell. It feels silly—what's the proper visitation etiquette in a world decimated by madness?—and it's a little hard trying to pretend she doesn't feel Soul's rigid presence at her back, but they manage to maintain the most awkward silence in all of history until the door swings open.

Standing on the other side is an old woman with white eyes, tanned skin, and an exasperated expression on her face. She also happens to be a full head shorter than Maka, who is very regularly heckled for the fact that she barely passes five feet.

"Cripes," the woman groans. "And I was hoping the birds were lying. Well, don't just stand there, you two. Come in before you let out all the hot air."

Maka blinks. "I'm sorry?"

"You're the dead girl, are you not? The one with the angel soul? My familiars warned me you'd be dropping by." Her opaque white eyes scan up and down Maka's frame, flickering briefly to Soul before she turns on her heel, leaving the door wide open behind her. "If you're here to beg for my help, you might as well do it over a cup of tea."

The witch's name is Theodora and her bungalow is an exact replica of the kind of home you'd expect an erratic, senile, shut-in of a woman to live in. The only thing that's missing is the twenty cats.

Sitting stiffly on an antique sofa in a cluttered living room, Maka and Soul stare straight ahead in tense silence until Theodora returns with a tray balancing a surprisingly nice set of china.

"Dear lord, you two are more awkward than two virgins trying to navigate around their first dick. Are you always this taciturn? Considering you're here on behalf of the reaper, you'd think you would have better manners that this."

"I'm sorry," Maka apologizes for the both of them when it becomes clear that Soul is incapable of unclenching his jaw enough to speak. "I don't mean to be rude. It's just—you're not exactly what I expected."

Theodora sets the tray on the coffee table and shuffles some things around before pouring three cups of steaming amber liquid. "Imagining someone younger looking? Perhaps with enormous jugs protruding from her chest?"

A little pink reaches Maka's ears. "I just didn't think you'd be so receptive to our presence. From what I've heard, the DWMA and the witches haven't been on the greatest terms since the moon."

"Ah, yes. Because you're not from here, are you."

"Will that be an issue?"

"Not for me, but I'm not the witch you want to be convincing." Theodora takes a sip from her cup, her pinky perfectly raised. "I understand why you're here. I've foreseen it for weeks. The same way the Grand Witch specializes in spacial magic, I excel in magic pertaining to probability. It's not an exact science as the future is constantly changing, but there are a lot of outcomes that I can see more clearly as they are far more likely than others, and I can tell you without even looking that the chances of the witches helping the DWMA in this life is slim."

"So you're telling us no without even giving us a chance."

"On the contrary, I'm going to advocate for you even though I know how fruitless it will be."

Maka blinks. "Wait, so—"

"You won't be allowed into our realm," says Theodora. "The old hag has all but sealed off our portals to outsiders, and though I think she's a cynical crone who can't tell her head from her ass most days, I do understand the logic behind protecting our own. Still, I'll agree to speak to the Witch Order on your behalf. Make a case for the DWMA since you won't be able to do it yourself."

Maka frowns "How do I know you'll deliver our message? That you won't just pretend to be on our side and completely backstab us as soon as we're out the door?"

"I guess you're just going to have to take my words in faith."

"Faith isn't something we have in abundance these days."

"It's post-apocalypse," Theodora says. "We don't have _anything_ in abundance these days."

Maka sneaks a glance at Soul, who sits so stiffly at her side even though he tries to masquerade the illusion of indifference. Part of her wants to ask him what he thinks—after all, he's always been better at analyzing dodgy intentions and keeping his guard up around people Maka is often too quick to trust—but he remains silent, unwavering, like a block of stone at her side.

He's here and he'll protect her, but for some reason, she still feels alone.

"Okay, fine," she says eventually. "Say we trust you to appeal to the Witch Order for us. How long do you think it'll take? A couple hours? All night? We can find a place to crash in town if you won't get an answer until sunrise, but—"

"Whoa there, lass, slow it down a little. While your faith in my ability to rush the most powerful of my kind is very flattering, this isn't a light decision to be made. The Witch Order has been far more divided over the past few years than they ever have been. With the turmoil between the old and new generations, it's very likely the deliberation will take weeks. Months, even."

"_Months?" _Maka echoes with horror. "We don't _have _months! We need an answer _now_."

"Impatience is very much a human trait," the witch muses. "I've always found it very fascinating, this _now or never _mentality you all seem to have. Do none of you understand the pleasure of finally grasping something you've been anticipating for years?"

"Yeah, well, we don't live for centuries like you do so forgive me if we're not exactly keen on waiting around for something that may never happen."

Leaning back in her chair, Theodora laughs out loud, a full-bodied sound that originates from deep within her belly in a way that makes her seem both older and younger than she appears. "I like you, Maka Albarn. You've got spunk. Reminds me a lot of myself, back in the day. Because of that, I'll give you a little advice: the witches aren't the only magic users who can help you."

"If you're talking about wraiths, Kid already—"

Theodora scoffs. "As if I'd ever recommend the help of a death spirits. No. You're forgetting the existence of warlocks."

She goes still. "Like Eibon."

A nod. "Eibon was a brilliant man. Without him and the traitor known as Arachne, demon weapons like your boytoy here wouldn't even exist." The witch inclines her chin at Soul, who has remained tense and silent at Maka's side since they arrived, and she can't help but shift protectively towards him, her spine straightening like the mere quarter-inch of height could be enough to pull all attention to her instead. "Oh, relax, darling, that isn't an accusation. It's a compliment. It's pioneers like the Gorgon and warlock that change the world for the better—and I believe that could be the case here."

"But I—I've never actually met a warlock before," Maka says. "Not here, and not in my timeline. Even if we did consider colluding with them, I wouldn't know where to start, what to look for, how to _ask_."

"I'll admit that the males are far more nomadic than my kind—they don't have a queen like us witches do, nor do they have a world of their own created on a plane with spacial magic—but that also means they're better at thriving on their own and I believe that's the kind of proficiency that will help you in your fight against the kishin."

"For all we know, they could be uncooperative. Unreliable."

"For all you know, so could I," Theodora counters. "No matter who you beg to assist you, there is always the risk of betrayal. You know it. Your boyfriend knows it. After all, it's what got you killed."

At that, Maka's head snaps to Soul, but he keeps his gaze trained forward, his jaw as set as hers. "Are you saying we shouldn't get our hopes up? That we're on our own?" It's the first thing he's said since they arrived, and it breaks her heart that his words are so hopeless. Resigned.

Theodora smiles. "I'm saying that you shouldn't put all your bets on one horse. But that's a lesson you've already learned, isn't it."

"Fine," Maka says after a long, charged silence, uncertain about what just happened but knowing it can't mean any good. "We'll let you speak to the witches on our behalf and in the meantime we will try to enlist as many warlocks as we can find. But I'm not giving you months; that's a ridiculous timeframe just to deliberate. You have two weeks. If you don't return with an answer by then, we'll take that as a no and proceed without you."

"Two weeks," Theodora echoes. "So you want to be here for the rebellion. I thought you were anxious to get back to your own timeline."

"They can do without me for a couple weeks. This timeline can't."

"Cutting it a little close there, eh, lass?"

Maka is very careful not to flinch under Soul's sudden stare as she answers, "I refuse to leave this plane without knowing my friends will be alright."

"The old witches won't be pleased with you giving them an ultimatum."

"It's the twenty-first century. Either they can accept the chance to be part of something great or they can fall behind."

Theodora smiles. "I always knew I'd like you."

"One more thing," Maka says. "When you go to the Witch Order to ask for their help, you need to remind them of my timeline. Of the peace they can have if they agree to work with the DWMA. Because if they don't—if they decide not to assist us and we save the world anyway—they won't be given any more allowances. That'll be it. This is their last chance for an alliance. I won't be able to advocate for the witches' survival if they turn us away again, and no one else will bother. I'll be gone."

Absently, Theodora runs her finger over the gold rim of her teacup and hums a note that makes Soul inch closer to Maka's side. "You know, you're not nearly as uncouth as I'd expected you'd be."

She tips her chin. "I'll take that as a compliment."

"It's a deal then. I'll act as your ambassador for the Witch Order and you won't waste time waiting for us to save your asses without a backup plan. Are there any other stipulations you'd like to work out?"

Maka exchanges a glance with Soul. "I don't think so."

"Good. Because I have one of my own." Pushing to her feet, Theodora brushes down her skirt and walks over to the floor-length mirror hanging on her wall which looks more like it belongs in a Victorian movie than a worn-down bungalow. "At least _try_ to take care of my home while I'm gone. Though I guess I can't blame you if you fail."

With that, she places her hand on the glass—and falls right through.

Both Maka and Soul jump off the couch with a cry, the former charging towards the mirror with an outstretched arm. Before she can reach the glass, Soul snatches her wrist from the air, tugging her back into his chest, restraining her as she thrashes.

"Don't be stupid," he says sharply. "You heard what the hag said. Even if you do manage to pass through, the witches won't welcome an outsider's presence—_especially_ if that outsider happens to be from another world entirely."

"But—"

"But nothing. We did what Kid asked us to do. We found a witch and broached the idea of an alliance. The rest is on them."

Before Maka can protest further, a loud screech fills the air, like a set of gigantic claws scratching against an amplified chalkboard connected to the loudest amplifier known to man.

Soul immediately clasps his hands over her ears as if to protect her from the sound, but that silly notion is thankfully dropped when the walls around them start to crack as if caving in from immense pressure. Her brows pull together, wondering what the hell is going on, and then suddenly Soul is shoving her to the ground.

"Down!" he yells. "Get down now!"

The walls split; crack. She tries to see what's happening, but Soul has already rolled them against the sofa, curling his body tightly over hers. The most terrible crunching noise fills the air as crumbled plaster and wood showers down on them from above, and by the time the cement rain has stopped and her weapon peels himself off her long enough to tug her to her feet, the entire top half of the witch's house is gone. Completely torn off. Like it was just the unwanted head of a discarded Barbie doll.

And standing there, staring down at them from the now-topless bungalow, is an enormous, drooling, six-eyed creature the size of a fucking castle with claws the size of a crater.

_A demon_.

It tosses the useless top half of the house to the side, bends down, and screams directly in their faces.

The force of the sound throws them backward, Soul barely managing to cushion the impact as they slam into the wall. He coughs, warm liquid splattering onto her shoulder. Horrified, she twists around, an apology crawling its way out of her throat, but he's already wiping away the blood and tugging on her arm, coaxing her over the lowest part of the torn wall so she's outside before pulling himself out behind her.

"Wha—"

"Do you not see the giant fucking monster trying to devour us?" he hisses. "Run, damn it! _Run!_"

And so they run. They run like she's never run before in her entire life. The whole time, they're tailed by that massive, inhumanly grotesque behemoth that bulldozes over everything in its path as it chases after them like a starving cat after two very juicy mice.

"What the hell is that thing?" Maka cries, breathless in their haste.

"Fuck if I know," Soul grunts. "I haven't seen a demon that big in years, not since the beginning of the plague of insanity."

Maka hurdles over a fallen tree in their way, Soul following a deliberate two steps behind her. "It must've spurned here because of the flare of magic when Theodora opened the portal to the Witches' Realm." Which means there's hope. If the kishin is this desperate to get to the witches at every possible opportunity, it must mean he's really concerned that their power will be enough to stop him.

"Whatever the case, there's no way we can get out of here without killing it." Something like finality settles in his voice as he says, "Keep running. Don't look back."

Her feet immediately do the opposite of what he said as she whirls around and cries, "Soul, _no!_"

It's too late. Her stupid, self-sacrificial weapon already has one arm transformed into a blade as he charges directly at the monster they're trying to flee.

Without even thinking about it, Maka races after him.

Her Soul, no matter how much he tries to embody some false sense of coolness, is an inherent pacifist to his core. His first instinct is always to protect Maka first, attack second. He thinks three steps ahead, never lets his guard down, and makes it his sole mission to watch her back because she's too reckless to do it herself.

This Soul, however, is _fierce_. There's no other way to explain it. She actually freezes in place as she watches him unwaveringly attack a creature than is more than fifty times his size, his movements so filled with purpose, so beautiful, that it literally takes her breath away.

The demon screeches its protest, trying to swat at Soul like a fly, but he's too fast, darting in and out between its legs, slicing with intent. He manages to sever one of its supporting limbs before the monster strikes back in a rage, its anger making it so unpredictable that it is able to land a surprising hit on Soul that sends him flying off to the side.

He skids to a stop on a triple balance, blade digging into the ground, and uses the back of his human hand to wipe against his mouth. The monster lurches, shrieking with fury as it charges towards him, but Maka is already moving before she can think better of it.

Focusing all her energy into her palms, she dives forward mere meters before it reaches Soul and sends out a soul wavelength that explodes through the entire city like an electromagnetic pulse.

The demon is thrown back several miles from the force of it, crashing into faraway trees in the distance. Maka can feel blood start to drip down her arms from the dozens of cuts that burst on her skin from using so much power at once—she's not as versatile as Black Star or Kid, and proficiently using soul wavelengths as an offensive has never been her strong suit—but she doesn't care, more focused on making sure her weapon is okay than anything else.

When she kneels at his side, ready to help him to his feet, he's already lurching forward to grab her shoulders with wild eyes.

"What the _fuck_, Maka? Are you trying to get yourself killed?!"

"Gee, you're welcome," she says sarcastically. "I'm glad you appreciate the fact that I just saved your life. Now transform."

"_What?_"

"I said _transform_. Don't make me explain weapon biology to you right now; we don't have the time. The demon is coming back and we need to be prepared."

"Over my dead fucking body," he growls. "You are _not_ fighting. You're going to sit your ass down and let me—"

"God, stop it already!" she cries. "I get it—you're angry and unhappy and overall resentful of the fact that I'm here, but that demon is the size of Space Mountain and I swear to god if we end up dying just because you have some admittedly well-deserved intimacy issues, I'm going to kick your dead ass back to life just so I can say I told you so!"

He jerks back at the volume of her outburst, blinking at her like he's actually stunned by something she's done. "I don't need your help. I can fight on my own."

"Fine, do it for me then! Do you really think you can defeat that thing while looking out for me at the same time? Because I sure as hell can't defend myself against something like that, and despite what you like to pretend, I know you'd never leave me unprotected."

At that, his jaw clenches and she immediately floods with guilt for playing the protector card.

Softening her tone, she pleads quietly, "I know you're used to fighting alone but you don't have to here, Soul—not anymore—so please, for the love of all things horrifying, just grab my hand and _let me wield you_."

It feels like an eternity of silence with him staring at her like that, and just when she's starting to think he's going to tell her to fuck off, he reaches for her hand.

They're barely skin to skin for a heartbeat before he's transformed into steel, the shift so seamless it feels like he's always been there in her grasp. For a brief moment, she's scared her arm will dip beneath his weight, that her soul won't be remotely compatible with his as they are now, but her hand remains steady and his shaft doesn't burn.

It feels _natural_. Right. Easier than breathing.

"_Incoming_," she hears him say, his voice a soothing hum rushing through her veins, and she can't stop the warmth in her chest as she leaps forward to stop the demon that charges at them.

No matter what he tried to pretend, there's no way that fighting on his own was easier than battling with her. Their breaths sync instantly, dodging each of the monster's attacks at a sprint that blends flawlessly with a large arc. Three of its legs sever at once, its entire left side collapsing with the loss.

Feeling his soul urge hers up, she jumps, dodging a stream of poison that sprays from the monster's side and landing in a run up its back, Soul's blade dragging through its skin the entire way. She does this until she reaches the demon's head, flipping to slice the whole thing off in one swift motion before falling to the ground.

Behind them, the creature bursts into a million tiny orbs of dark light.

"_Maka_," Soul warns, keeping her grounded before she can get ahead of herself.

"I know." Like him, she can see the dozens of black circles spawn on the ground around them, and she definitely can't miss the way these jerky, angular limbs crawl their way out from within, their beady, inhuman eyes locking in on her without pause. "We can't dodge these like the others. Are you ready?"

"_Don't insult me_," her partner rumbles, and she lets herself flash a smile as she rushes forward.

These creatures aren't like anything else she's ever fought before, even during the brief stint when Asura prevailed in her world. They're nothing but pawns, one-shot targets, bursting with a single effortless slice of Soul's blade only to be replaced by a new respawns a few seconds later. They aren't difficult to fight, but at this rate, she's going to grow exhausted before she figures out how to stop them from appearing for good.

"_Don't waste your time with these soulless dolls_," Soul instructs. "_You need to look for the puppeteer behind them if you want this to end_."

She dodges another one of their attacks while twirling his blade to slice through three of them at once. As she moves, she scans the area around them for anything that might stand out, but since demons don't have souls, she's no more useful than a blind cat in predicting where the source may be. "I don't even know what to look for. Have you ever fought anything like this before?"

"_Best part about a world filled with madness is that the number of different types of demons is immeasurable. I'm not familiar with these parasites either._"

"Never a dull day in the apocalypse, huh?"

"_If only._" She can feel him start to say something else, but then his soul stiffens like he's been shocked. "_Maka, RUN!" _

She understands what he means all too late.

The ground beneath her feet begins to tremble. At first, she thinks that maybe this is an earthquake—strange because they're nowhere near the edge of a tectonic plate, but also _not_ strange because an increased number of natural disasters is to be expected with madness—but then the ground starts to _rise_. It shakes and ascends beneath her feet, like a mountain growing in hyperspeed, inflating several stories high before she can reign in her shock enough to move.

She's so focused on trying to maintain her balance that a few of the smaller demons manage to land their claws on her. At Soul's rageful urging, she retaliates, though she winces as she knocks them off her because they manage to tear out chunks of skin. She swiftly eliminates the remaining brainless pawns, but it doesn't matter—not when she sees the area around them.

It isn't just the ground beneath her that has risen. It's the entire forest-woven _town_. Several yards on all sides of her have ballooned upward, dirt and grass and trees and fucking _houses_ falling away to reveal scaly violet skin, so deep that it looks almost black in the night.

She hasn't seen a monster this huge since they fought that sky whale years ago, and this is even bigger.

"_Maka—!"_

The hit comes out of nowhere. It must've been some sort of snapping limb attached to its massive body, because one second she's standing on the center of the demon's enormous back and the next she's smacked through the air and slamming into the dirt a full mile away from the furthest edge of its monstrous form.

Soul is human at her side in an instant, helping her to her knees with urgent hands and words that blend together. "—you okay? Where are you hurt? Is it your arm? Maka, answer me!"

She leans her forehead into his shoulder, struggling to control her breaths. "Transform back."

"You're fucking kidding me, right? You're _hurt!_ You can't—"

"I've fought with worse injuries before," she reminds him and immediately softens at the way her words seem to hurt him. "I know you're worried, but no matter how much stronger you might be in this timeline, there's no way you can take out a behemoth like that on your own. We need to resonate."

She can feel him stiffen rather than see it. When he speaks, his voice is strangled. "Maka—"

"Please, we're running out of time!" The giant demon is already turning, much slower than its microscopic counterparts but most likely a thousand times stronger. "Please, Soul? At least try?"

She tips her head so she can look pleadingly into his eyes. His jaw tightens infinitesimally, but she knows him and she knows this isn't a fight between them even before he relents with a grunt. "Don't blame me if it doesn't work, alright?"

"Never," she vows, relieved.

The weight of his shaft is slightly warmer this time, though not enough to burn. He's so scared. She can feel it, even though they've barely touched souls. She tries to send soothing wavelengths through him as much as she possibly can, but it's difficult to concentrate on feelings of tranquility when a town-sized demon is literally trying to crush her beneath its massive stumps.

When she tentatively tries to press her soul closer to his as she runs, he flinches back so violently that she actually loses her footing.

Using the force of her fall to roll back to her feet, she jerks to the side a split second before the behemoth flattens her into a pancake. She can feel her pulse race, knowing that her minutes are numbered. They can't continue like this for much longer. One minor slip up and she's burnt freaking toast.

"Soul—"

"_I know,"_ he snaps, voice sharp to mask his growing anxiety. "_I _know_, alright? Don't you think I'm fucking trying?!" _

"Hey, it's okay," she soothes. "Soul, it's okay. Really. There's no rush. Take your time."

They both know she's bullshitting—they don't have any time, not now—but he's too wound up to snap back at her and she's too breathless to say anything more. With each passing second, with each millimeter dodge, with each block of his blade against one of the monster's whip-like extensions, she feels him growing hotter and hotter in her hands, almost to the point of being unbearable.

Part of her wants to beg him to move faster, to start letting her in before they don't even have a chance to try, but she knows that kind of pressure will only make this harder and so instead she bites her tongue until she can taste blood.

After another near-miss, she feels his anxiety burst, can practically taste the "_fuck it_" on her own lips as he slams his soul against hers.

The raw shock of the forced resonance nearly _ruins_ her. For one, brief, terrifying moment, they are one, so connected that it's impossible to tell where she ends and he begins, but it only lasts one second, one heartbeat, one breath where she can feel all the open wounds on his soul like her own, flooding her like a tsunami, crashing, burning, _drowning_ her—_he loves her he loves her he loves her so much it _hurts_, it hurts so fucking much_—and then they _shatter_.

The break in their souls hits so hard that it forces her to her knees, his scythe form clattering to the ground. She is panting, breathless, fractured. She has never felt soul rejection that fierce—never, not with him, not even when they first went up against the immortal werewolf or when they fought so hard that they almost hated each other.

Above her, she feels the demon descend but she is too stunned that she can only squeeze her eyes shut.

The impact comes from the side instead of overhead like she was expecting. Soul knocked her aside in time to save her life, back in his human form. He tries to roll up with her in his arms, but the demon is faster, its enormous leg moving to swipe them off to the side like they're nothing but a useless marble.

He cushions her impact as they slam into a tree, his back cracking with a groan. Horrified, Maka immediately scrambles to her knees at his side, touching his scratched up, too scarred, too _beautiful_ face, but he only groans lowly, not moving. Her heart picks up to arrhythmic levels.

"Oh my god, are you okay? _Please_, I'm so sorry, I should've known better. I didn't mean to force you, I just—" There's a flash in the distance and her eyes go wide. "_NO!"_

In a last ditch effort, she throws her body over his, curling over him so deeply as if she's trying to make her spine a cage and he is nothing more than something too lovely and precious that needs to be protected. She squeezes her eyes shut, thinks, _I'm so sorry, so sorry, I love you so much, _and she braces herself for the demon's whips to pierce through her back.

But it doesn't come.

Cracking her eyes open, she cranes her neck around and is stunned by the sight.

Long, dark shadow tendrils are wrapped around the demon's every limb, holding it back, even as its claw-like extensions hover inches from Maka's face. She blinks once and they're gone, yanked back, thrashing wildly in the shadow hold as it's forced to flatten against the ground.

Just when she thinks she's lost it, she sees a tiny shape above the massive monster, the center of all the tendrils, with a burst of energy so strong she can't help but stare. Even more than that, though, she sees the soul.

_Black Star. _

Only the assassin could kill a giant like this with one shot straight down the center of the demon's core. And that is exactly what he does.

The behemoth that has spent the better part of the past half hour knocking Maka and Soul around bursts into a large collective of vanishing black orbs of light with that one strike. Black Star's figure floats down almost gracefully from where he'd been perched, and he expertly angles through the air so he can touch down only a few feet away from Maka and Soul.

Tsubaki shifts to human form the instant they reach the ground, as tall and lovely as usual, but it's the assassin's enormous grin that catches Maka's attention.

"What, I don't get a hug for saving your sorry ass? C'mon, Maks, you can do better than that."

Her eyes flood with tears. "Star!"

He catches her with a laugh, using the momentum of her tackle to spin her on her feet. Her pseudo-brother has never been that much taller than her, but with his ridiculous muscles and an ego way too big for any human to contain, he's always seemed so much larger than he is.

As soon as he sets her down, she immediately throws her arms around Tsubaki next. The beautiful shadow weapon chuckles slightly as she returns the embrace and Maka finds herself crying in earnest at the genuine warmth.

Star and Tsubaki are the first to act glad that she's here instead of stunned or angry. It means more to her than she can ever say.

"What are you two doing here?" Maka asks, wiping at her eyes. She wants to blame her overactive tear ducts on the insanity-filled air but unfortunately she knows it's just who she is.

Black Star shrugs. "The baby reaper said you hadn't checked in before talking to the witch and he was worried. Sent 'Baki and me to give you a hand on our way back to Death City."

"Where have you _been_ all this time? Where's everyone else? Are they with you? Are they on their way? What about—?"

"Whoa there, bookworm, calm your tits," he laughs. "It's just us. 'Baki and I have been in charge of making sure East Asia doesn't get gobbled up by madness and we only came back because Kid said you rose from the dead. We haven't had contact with the others in years."

"_Years?_"

"That's what I said, innit?" With a snort, his sharp blue eyes slide to something over her shoulder, darkening to a shade Maka doesn't think she's ever seen on the self-proclaimed god she calls her family. "Why am I not surprised you still haven't told her anything? Still too ashamed of the fact that you're the one who got her killed?"

"Hey," says Maka sharply. "Star, I love you and I'm glad to see you but if you ever imply Soul was responsible for my death again, I will personally rearrange all your organs with my fist."

"Promise?" he croons. When she looks ready to deck him, he rolls his eyes and throws his absurdly buff arm over her shoulder. "Fine, fine, I'll stop bullying your pussy-faced boyfriend, whatever. But admit it, you need me. Tall, tan, and broody over there nearly got you killed."

"Star," Tsubaki says.

"Oh, c'mon, not you too," he whines. "What's the point of coming back here if I can't poke a little fun at his pathetic existence?" At both girls' glares, he relents with a dramatic sigh. "God, you're no fun. And jeez, Maks, what the hell did you do, fight an entire army before we got here? You're covered in blood!"

A flush crawls over her skin. "It's nothing. I'm fine."

He eyes the bleeding chunk on her arm, his nose wrinkling with disgust. "Are those fucking teeth?"

"I said I'm fine! I just—Soul?" She's interrupted when she feels her weapon start to march in the opposite direction, and much to her dismay, he doesn't stop walking at the sound of her voice. If anything, he walks faster. "Wait, where are you going?"

She moves to rush after him, her hand reaching out as if to grab his arm, but he smacks it away before she can touch him. "_Don't_."

Hurt blossoms through her chest. "Soul?"

"Stop that," he grits out. "Stop saying my name, stop chasing after me, stop looking at me like I killed your dog—just fucking _stop_ it, stop all of it! I don't want your pity, and I certainly don't want—" He breaks off suddenly, his eyes tightening as they flicker down her frame, and his muscles seem to wind impossibly more as he whirls around as his whole body trembles like his entire world is coming apart at the seams. "Fuck," he chokes out, hands rising to grip his hair. Twist. "I can't. I can't do this. I can't fucking be here right now."

"Wait, but—"

He's already gone.

For a long moment, she can only stare, wondering what she did, what went wrong, was this all her fault, did she push too hard? She knew he was hurting and she forced him to fight with her anyway.

She's the _worst_. No wonder he's so upset.

"Don't go after him."

Maka whirls around, eyes widening at the sight of Black Star so near. She'd completely forgotten he was here. "But I have to! He's hurting and—"

"Of course he's fucking hurting, Maks. Don't you get it? You come here out of nowhere and keep trying to fucking fix everyone, but it doesn't work like that. Five minutes with you isn't enough to erase years of suffering, no matter how important you think you are."

"I'm not trying to _fix_ him—"

"Aren't you?"

She's always hated when Black Star is serious. It makes it impossible to turn away.

"Ask me." When she looks confused, he says, "Go on, ask me about him. I know you have questions and I doubt that broody ass answered any of your questions. You want to know why he's so fucking dark all the time, what he did to make us hate him, how he got his scar—though you probably guessed that it's all your fucking fault for getting yourself killed."

Maka flinches.

She must look more pathetic than she feels because Tsubaki is the one who takes pity on her, her gentle voice a sharp contrast to her meister's tactless bluster. "You have to understand," Tsubaki murmurs. "You didn't die right away. The kishin had ripped open your torso in a fatal blow, forcing Soul to hold onto you as you slowly bled to death. It was… hard on him. None of us had ever seen him that distraught.

"And it was worse when we were forced to leave your body behind on the moon. He was ready to stay there with you. To _die_ with you. He refused to do anything else. Kid had to knock him out just so we could carry him home, and even then, we were forced to heavily sedate him in the DWMA basement just to make sure he wouldn't be a danger to himself." She touches her cheek, tracing a mirror of the discolored mark that stains Soul's face. "The kishin nearly consumed him. The fact that he managed to escape with only a scar is a miracle."

A sick feeling settles in Maka's stomach. "You had to sedate him?"

"Yes. For a couple of weeks. Most of us were concerned that he'd fall to madness without your wavelength to keep him sane, but surprisingly, his anguish wasn't because of black blood. He was simply… grieving."

"And—and the others? Was everyone else okay?"

"The world fell quickly. We tried to hold them off, but we could only do so much. We were forced to split up to try and cover as much ground as possible, but that only left the weaker teams more vulnerable to attacks." Tsubaki's expression is sad. "We lost a lot of people. You, Ox, Stein…" A pause. "Patty."

Maka had expected as much—there was no way either Kid or Liz would ever be caught dead in a ruined world without their sister—but to hear a confirmation, to have speculation turn into fact… It feels like a crippling punch to the gut. "What about my father?"

"The pervert's still alive, as far as we know," answers Star. "He refuses any contact with Kid and pretty much wanders around on his own, but we ran into him once a few years ago when he was crossing through Japan." He kicks at the ground, though his expression is serious. "I'm not gonna lie, Maks, he didn't look good. He had it almost as bad as Eater after you died."

She's going to throw up. "But that doesn't explain why you guys are so distant from each other and so angry with Soul. You're all stronger together; we _know_ that. Splitting up was the worst possible thing you could've done. How were you supposed to fight the kishin on your own?" When Black Star and Tsubaki exchange a look, Maka feels her anxiety spike, a tight coil in the center of her chest. "What? What aren't you telling me?"

Gently, Tsubaki says, "There's just… A lot has happened since you died. We couldn't trust each other anymore. Everyone was angry with Kid, and there wasn't anyone else to hold our souls together with you gone. It wasn't practical. Trying to stay together was doing more harm than good."

What she's saying doesn't line up with the severity behind the guilt underlying her face. Maka finds herself staring blankly for a long time, trying to equate this tired, worn-down girl to the glowing bride-to-be she remembers from her timeline. Then sudden realization strikes like a bucket of ice water dumped over her head and ignites every nerve in her body with horror.

Because now it makes _sense_. Why everything feels so dull, so stagnant. Why it's been five years and the world is at a steady decline instead of a series of bursts and explosions. Why their remaining comrades are spread out all around the globe instead of gathered in some cluttered room, spending hour after hour, day after day, planning attack after attack on the kishin until they can save the world. Why Soul is allowed to hole up in a tiny cabin playing guardian to the superficial border of a miniscule city and everyone pretty much snarls to say his name.

"You—you _gave_ _up_. You all gave up," she says, stunned. "You're not even trying to defeat the kishin anymore. You're just fighting enough to survive."

Black Star's smile is full of teeth. "Proud of us, aren't ya? You should just be glad we made it this long."

Maka turns to run without saying another word. Both of them call after her, but she knows they aren't going to follow because despite their apparent lack of motivation, they have to know there's only one possible person she's running _to_.

It may be cheating, but she searches for his soul. Though his body and mind might be different, she could find his soul in any haystack in any ocean in any country in the world. She knows it like she knows that the moon should be black and her friends should've never given up. She knows it like she's never known anything as much as she's sure that she was made to belong to him. To _be_ with him. It's her most powerful destiny, her greatest strength.

He must sense her coming because she can feel him start to move the instant she draws near. The winding paths of what remains of this forested town—just a few dozen miles on each side of where the giant demon had been defeated—make it harder to reach him, but she's nothing if not supremely stubborn and determined to win.

"Don't you dare, Soul Eater!" she yells. "I swear to god if you run away from me right now, I will _never_ speak to you again."

It's a low blow, but it does the trick. He doesn't move as she locks in on his location and crosses the remaining distance until she bursts through the clearing where he is.

He's standing in the center, knees locked like a pillar. There's a giant boulder a couple feet away that he must've been resting against before she nearly chased him out of the country, but for now, all she can see are the tense lines of his shoulders through his jacket as he waits for her to speak.

Instead, she stomps right up to him and immediately shoves at his back.

Surprised, he actually pitches forward a step before he catches himself, whipping around to tell her off. She keeps hitting him before he can, nothing hard or serious, but angry jerks with her bite-sized fists, pounding and pounding against his chest with her frustration until he becomes fed up with her and seizes her wrists in his grip.

"What the fuck?" he growls. "You came here to fucking fight me? Are you serious?"

"You're an asshole!" she shrieks back. "This whole time, I've been defending you and making allowances for you even without knowing what went on, but then you—you—_you—!_"

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"I kept running it through my head over and over again, trying to figure out why you were so angry with Kid. Was it because you blamed him for letting the world get this far? For trusting the witches? For not being able to save me? I thought, _this is my Soul_. He's the most reasonable person I know. There _must_ be a good explanation for why he blames our friend so much that it's isolated him from everyone we know and love. Right?" Her glare intensifies. "Wrong. It's not any of those things, is it? You're angry with him because he _saved your fucking life_."

Soul doesn't respond, but the way his jaw clenches is answer enough.

She starts fighting him in earnest now, thrashing in his hold like a wildcat that had stumbled upon a net trap. He struggles against her with a grunt, barely managing to keep hold of her wrists as she tries to get loose. When she tries to kick out at him, he actually growls as he jerks her back into his chest and wraps his arms around her, pinning her arms to her sides and her body against his.

"Stop it," he hisses. "You're acting like a child."

"No, _you're_ the child! All of you! You're supposed to be warriors that fight to save everyone even when it seems like all hope is lost, and yet at the first sign of defeat, you disband and split up across the world and claim that the reason you can't fight together anymore is because you're no longer friends. What the hell is wrong with you? I thought you guys were better than that!"

"You might want to lower expectations or you'll get real tired of disappointment real fast."

"_Don't_," she growls, craning her neck around to glare at him. "Don't you dare call yourself a disappointment."

"What, that isn't what you were getting at when you were trying to pummel me with your tiny fists?"

"I was trying to tell you that I'm _angry_. You're just—you're so smart, Soul, one of the smartest people I know, and yet sometimes you can be so stupid it drives me crazy! Even without the witches, you guys had every resource to try again to fight the kishin and instead you decided—what? That this world wasn't worth fighting for? That your lives didn't matter?" When he remains silent, she twists in his hold so she can face him, and surprisingly he lets her. "How could you ever believe even for a moment that you don't deserve any better? That this is the best it can get?"

He has completely released her now, but neither of them take a step back. They're still chest to chest, her neck craning almost painfully so she can look at him. He raises one hand to cup her cheek, and there's something so gentle in the gesture, so shattered, that her eyes blur before she can help it as heavy streams of tears cascade down her face.

Though she can no longer see him, she can't miss the way his soul crumples into a million little irreparable pieces.

"Please," he whispers, the word so wholly and terribly broken. "Please don't cry, Maka. I can't fucking take it."

That only makes her cry harder. "I am so, _so_ mad at you." Her voice cracks, and he tucks her against his chest again, far gentler this time, holding her like she's something precious, something delicate, something far more valuable than it's worth.

"I know."

Burying her face in his shirt, she fists her hands in his jacket and hates how safe she feels, how fast her anger dissipates when he holds her like this. She's not done lashing out at him—she wants to rage and roar and fight and scream—but feeling his arms around her is worse than kryptonite because it breaks her down into her bare essentials where all she needs is him, him, _him_.

"How could you give up like that?" she whispers. "How could you decide to die so quickly when moments before, you'd been determined to fight and win?"

There is a long pause. "You were dead because of me. I couldn't live with that. Didn't want to."

"But you're still alive."

A dark laugh. "Some sort of sick cosmic joke, I assure you."

"And Kid contacting the wraith—what was that for if you guys have already given up? What was the point of bringing me here?"

"That… is something you'll have to ask him yourself." Before she can press further, he continues, "He wasn't lying about trying now that you're here though. Now that he knows that peace was genuinely possible in your world, I think he's really willing to give it a shot—though at this point, it's hard to believe that any sort of harmony is possible at all, let alone that you actually achieved it."

"Are you saying you still don't believe me?"

"No, I do," he says, surprising her. "I get it now. I've felt your soul. I understand that there must've been a world where the witches came through and you were never killed. I just don't see how that could be possible here."

"But it is," she insists. "I know everything may seem horrible, but there's a real chance to fix it. I want you to know what it's like to be truly happy, the way I've been over the past few years—because we _are_ happy in my world. We're _allowed_ to be happy. We have a lot of responsibilities, of course—it comes with the territory of pioneering the first generation of peace—but it's never anything we can't handle when we're together."

His lips graze across the top of her head. "Sounds nice. I wish I could've seen it."

A lightbulb flickers on in her head. "Soul, you're a genius!" Suddenly energized, she leans back from him just enough so she can look into his eyes, her own filled with vivid excitement. "You _can_ see it. I can show you!"

His brows are wary. "How?"

"We need to resonate."

And there's that wall again. His soul shutters closed, a sheet of metal between her and the emotions he works so hard to hide. "Maka, we already tried that. We can't—"

"No, that was during battle. There was too much pressure and the variables were messing with your head. But this, right here, right now—it's just us. Just you and me. And we can _do_ this. I know we can."

He hesitates, uncertainty making his soul waver.

"Please, Soul? Let me show you. You want to know why I jumped in front of that attack for you? Why I'm so adamant that everyone can be saved? Resonate with me. Then you'll understand."

"It's been… a really long time," he murmurs. "Since I let someone in. I don't want to disappoint you again."

"You could never disappoint me," she says earnestly. "All I'm asking is that you try."

And so try they do. He is wary, of course—the kind of wary that is easier to express than fear—but he humors her anyway simply because she asked and it's that fact alone that assures her that they'll be able to succeed. No matter how crippling their self-doubt can be, the two of them are always able to find a home for themselves in each other's soul. It's their safe place when everything else feels like static.

"Are you ready?" she asks. They're standing in the center of the clearing now, hands clasped between them, eyes locked.

He nods once.

And so they both take the leap.

It's different than trying to merge in battle. There's no rush of adrenaline fueling their actions, no sounds of action drowning out their every thought. Soul holds back as discreetly as he can even though he has to know she'll notice, and instead of calling him out on it, she unclasps their hands so she can wrap her arms around his waist and rest her head against his chest.

"It's okay," she soothes when he startles. "It's just me, I'm right here. Do you trust me?"

This time, after a brief hesitation, he returns the embrace and lets his walls crumble down.

At first, it's almost disorienting. With her Soul, they've been such a big part of each other's lives for so long that every memory, every thought, every emotion had already been shared between them. They had no secrets and their lives were so intertwined that they could no longer see the line where her soul ended and his began.

But this Soul had an entirely different life, a contradicting set of memories. Resonating with him feels like returning to her apartment after several months only to find that someone had completely redecorated the place without her knowledge. The base is familiar, but nothing else is the same.

She feels lost in the space, swimming around cool air that feels familiar yet strange, until she sees it. A tiny, pale orb of light that she knows with every inch of her heart.

Relieved, she reaches out to cradle the soul and feels the connection flare to life.

They tumble into his soul first and all of his emotions come rushing into her in waves. She feels his pain, his longing, his fear of letting her in only to lose her all over again. She feels just how much he loves her, and how much it fucking hurt to have her appear out of nowhere after five years and discover she couldn't belong to him.

In a hazy image in front of her, she can see brief flashes through his eyes what had happened on the moon. Sounds of weapons clashing, people shouting. There's panic and a scramble to push ground, even with Kid and the others on the front lines, and a sense of dread when they realize they can't win.

"_The witches aren't coming! We need to retreat immediately!" _

There's so much blood. Someone is screaming. _Soul_ is screaming, she realizes, his blurry vision shaking and teeming with darkness as it shifts between all their friends pity-filled gazes as he begs them to save her, they need to keep her alive, just until they can get her back to Stein who had already been transported to Earth with most of the others by that hybrid immortal werewolf.

When they don't move, only look down at him with sadness, he focuses on keeping his hands on her stomach, trying to hold her organs inside as she shudders, her skin getting colder and colder by the second as he wails, "_Why are you just standing there? Why aren't you helping her?!" _

In the background, she hears someone crying.

The image skips quickly, racing past dark memories of being chained in a basement and years of isolating himself from the others until it reaches the present. She sees what it felt like for him to reunite with her for the first time after five years in the Death Room like he did. How much it hurt to be trapped in an enclosed space with her when they were driving to his cabin because he wanted to grab her hand so badly it was killing him. How terrified he was saving her from the river, and how having her lie on top of him, all naked and lovely and wet, was the kind of torture he didn't think he'd be strong enough to endure.

Suddenly, the whole space around them shifts again and they're in _her_ soul instead, a little brighter, a little warmer, but just as fervent in its affection. He whirls through her memories far faster than she had with his, starting from the very beginning when they first met and she thought his droopy eyes were super cute to the more romantic future of their relationship where he sneaks a kiss every time he can and she regularly stares at his ass.

"_You know I love you, right?"_ He whispers it to her so shyly, like he's genuinely scared she'll reject him despite the fact that they've been dating for over a year at this point and she regularly expresses her love in the form of teasing harassment.

Memory Maka can't help but laugh. "_You are such a dork,"_ she says, voice brimming with affection, as she rises on her toes and kisses away his heart.

She tries to steer him to tamer parts of her mind, wanting only to show him all the wonderful things that he can accomplish if he tries for peace, but Soul has a different idea. He dives straight into the most carnal spaces, the darkest corners, bringing out flashes of bare skin and melded lips and limbs tangled together.

They both watch a myriad of memories blur together where he caresses her cheek and stares at her with the kind of devotion that could ruin the gods. His kisses turn possessive and his gentle touches grow unhinged, and then suddenly he's biting her neck as he thrusts into her so deeply from below, above, _behind,_ bending her over any surface he can find and pressing in so hard that her soul bursts with literal stars.

With a gasp, Maka tries to pull him back, horrified that he's seeing all of this, that she's let this kind of thing slip, but they only end up flipped back into his mind instead. There's a repeat of the scenes she'd experienced before, except this time they're intensified, like seeing all of those parts of her soul had unlocked the carnal edge in his.

Now, instead of just wanting to hold her hand, Memory Soul wants to _devour_ her, grab her by the face and kiss her like there's no fucking tomorrow. He wants to hold her hand and kiss her face and tell her how much he wants to spend the rest of his life making her the happiest girl in the world by giving her everything she could ever want if she'll just let him stay by her side.

And when she'd straddled him by the river, he hadn't wanted to push her off. He wanted to roll them over, press her into the dirt, and then press into _her_ so fiercely that they were truly dirty in every inch of their souls. He wanted to grip her thighs with his hands as he bent her in half so he could fuck her deeper. Wanted to mark her in all the ways he'd been too scared to mark her when he was fifteen. Wanted to make sure everyone and their second cousin knew how much she belonged to him. How much _he_ belonged to _her_.

His fantasies blend so smoothly with her memories that she's no longer sure where she is anymore because it's all the same. It's not just kissing, not just sex. It's _them_, together, combined, as one. His cock spreads her dangerously, making it impossible for her to think or believe that she could ever exist without being connected to him, and they're twisted together, tangled, and he's somehow entering her in a million different ways in a million different positions a million different times and—

She knows she's escaped the resonance space of their souls and returned to the real world when the shock of the cold, frozen ground burns into her back. The real Soul is now caged around her as their lips move with the kind of synchrony they'd felt in their souls. Her jacket is torn open so he can trail kisses along her neck, down her chest, and when he reaches the roadblock that is her collar, he lets out a growl as he pulls away just enough so he can shove up her sweater over her breasts and cover one stiff peak with his mouth.

She gasps out loud, her body arching up into him at the contact. She doesn't realize her legs are wrapped around his waist until they tighten with need, his bone-melting hardness rubbing straight against her core. Every inch of her, every single nerve, is trembling and needy. The air is _freezing_, should make her tremble, but she has never felt so hot.

After thoroughly worshipping her breasts with his tongue, he refastens his lips on hers, kissing her with the kind of reverence that leaves her dizzy. Her Soul has hands that are too soft and touches that are so, so gentle, but this Soul is desperate, needy, with scarred hands as rough and hard as her own, and she hates that they've gotten to this point, that her beautiful, gentle weapon has been hurt this much, but she also feels drunk with desire, wanting those gritty palms pressing into her back and those calloused fingers gripping harder and harder, and oh god, what would they feel like somewhere else? Much lower, gripping her ass, crawling up her thigh, deep inside her?

The thought makes her gasp, her hips bucking up into his again. He groans low in his throat and the sound makes her whimper.

"S-Soul," she breathes against his lips, panting with her desire. "_Please_. I—I—"

"Maka?"

It would be so easy—so easy—for him to sink inside her, for him to fill the empty space in her core where it clenches around nothing and begs for something, anything, to end this torment.

It would be _so easy_—and yet it wouldn't.

"We _can't_."

He goes still.

Part of her wants to take it back—tell him she didn't mean it and was just being silly so long as he goes back to kissing her like that—but a stronger, far more moral part of her is firm and refuses to let her voice a rescindment.

"What's wrong? You don't… want me?" His voice is low, with absolutely zero anger or accusation, but that means it's impossible for him to hide his hurt and it's worse than shredding her heart with a steak knife.

"No, I _do_," she says. "God, I—I _swear_, I do, I want you _so fucking much_. You're my Soul and I—I can't even breathe properly when you're in the same room because my heart hates it when we're not touching, so the mere thought of me not wanting you is the most impossible thing on this earth. I just... It feels like—"

_Cheating_. It feels like she's _cheating_. On Soul, with Soul.

She doesn't say the words out loud, but he must hear them anyway.

He grows even more still, his shaky breaths the only thing assuring her that he hasn't been cursed into a statue. Eventually he retreats back onto his knees, drawing her up with him so she's sitting. He then proceeds to smooth her shirt back into place, tugging her ripped jacket shut so it can preserve her warmth. When it doesn't shield her to his standard, he shrugs off his own jacket, ignoring her half-hearted protests as he drapes it over her shoulders and zips it all the way up until the high collar grazes her lips.

Only when he pulls her into his chest, wrapping her so fully in his embrace, does she realize she is shaking—and not from the cold.

"I'm so sorry," she whispers. "I didn't… It's not that I don't want you, I swear, I just—I didn't mean to show you any of that. I wanted you to see that the world can be wonderful if you promise to fight with me and that we can find peace and you can be happy and everyone can be friends again and—"

"Shhhh," he murmurs into her hair, tucking her head gently beneath his chin. "It's okay. I understand. You don't have to apologize. I'm the one who's sorry. I never should've pushed."

"But you didn't—"

"Maka."

She swallows through the lump in her throat, understanding his plea. Nothing she can say right now will comfort him. Her babble is only to appease her own guilt; it does nothing but hurt him more.

_I love you_, she wants to say, the words so persistent that they clog her throat and make it impossible to breathe. _I love you. I love you so much. _

But the words don't come. Her heart may be cruel, but her mouth knows when to be merciful to the broken.

"Will you stay with me?"

She startles. "I'm sorry?"

"Stay," he repeats. "Tonight. When we return to Death City, don't go back to the Gallows. Stay with me instead."

Tears well up in her eyes. "Of course I'll stay with you. As long as you want, I'm here."

**ii. **

They say you can't hear the sound of a heart breaking.

Maka begs to differ.


End file.
